


these are delicate days

by Kirta



Series: my dreams are not unlike yours [9]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings Online
Genre: ...sorry if you came here via 'sad about rangers' train, Gen, isena and isedd finally get their own thing though!, r4 don't get a tag yet. thrymm/cyneberg maybe should tho, should the huorn get a character tag?, spoilers? a lil for super early prologue quests and then stangard langhold and wildermore mostly, then again. everyone likes being sad about amdir, they're only in the first couple chapters, who doesn't have her own thing. Yet, why not, will update characters later on, with bonus appearances from rani
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 46,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28044003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kirta/pseuds/Kirta
Summary: Isena and Isedd have spent half their life now around Bree, but it takes less convincing than they might have thought to go home.(the one where i gleefully chop up and redistribute a number of rohan questlines that est never technically got to)
Series: my dreams are not unlike yours [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1562503
Comments: 46
Kudos: 6





	1. 'prologue' is a matter of perspective (isedd)

**Author's Note:**

> [title note i probably should have added earlier- borrowed from 'sky turns day glo' by bush]
> 
> so. as i do, i wrote one little thing [edge ch3] for isena and isedd and now i'm working on a whole Thing for them. rohirrim warden & loremaster respectively, finally on their way back home (.....eventually)

This is going to land them in trouble again.

That much is typical, at least. They were in agreement that they could not sit and do nothing this morning, hearing the tale from old Alse, hunched bruised and frightened over their kitchen table. Isedd thinks his sister might have marched into the woods then and there if Alse hadn’t looked at them both with such fear and all but begged them to stay.

They’re still creeping through the trees tonight anyway, following Bear as he lumbers along in the dark, nose swinging from side to side, but they have not left the farm undefended. Alse and the others likely are not as reassured as Isedd and Isena are by their measures, but if they do nothing but wait and brace for more trouble, it will surely find them sooner or later. 

Bear stops and starts nosing around in a bush. Isena kneels to study the ground beside him.

“Light?” she murmurs. Isedd whispers a word of his own and a spark no brighter than a candle flame drifts past Isena’s head. She brushes a pile of dead leaves aside and something silver glints in the light. “Alse’s ring.” Bear gives up on the bush and starts moving again. Isedd and Isena follow.

Even careful as they are, they don’t see the other group until the leader’s torchlight touches their hair. They are terribly outnumbered, even with Bear, and Isedd snaps at him to get clear before the bandits turn their blades on him. Other Men are one thing, but bears are not creatures taken captive without planning.

It’s over quickly, at least. Isedd knows his sister does not have it in her to give in and never has, but he still winces to see how much of a beating it takes to put her out. He falls with the next hit aimed his way, letting himself go limp and his eyes mostly-closed, watching Isena as well as he can as the patrol carts them back to their hideout. 

Isena groans when they drop her beside Isedd in the cell and he waits in silence as she pulls herself together. 

"What did I miss?" she mumbles, holding her head. 

"The usual," Isedd says, crouching to look her over as best he can in the dim light. "I think we're a bit east of Archet, but it's hard to tell for sure." There's a lot of bruising, and there will likely be more later, but it seems no worse than that. 

"Fantastic." She stretches slowly, making a face. “Are these the same ones who gave Alse trouble?”

“As far as I can tell. If they aren’t, that means we have more than one of these groups around, and a whole lot more problems than we thought.” Isena mutters a few curses and leans back against the stone wall at the back of their little cell.

“Do you have a brilliant plan for getting us out of here yet?”

“I was waiting for you to finish your nap first.”

“And here I thought you could do these things on your own.” Isena grins and Isedd rolls his eyes.

“We aren’t the only ones here,” he says more seriously. “There are three other cells that I saw. I can’t speak to the others, but there are two hobbits in the third one.”

“Hobbits?” Isena echoes. “What do they want with hobbits?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t know what they want with us, either.”

They spend the next two hours scouring the cell- bare, stone, surprisingly dry- and their pockets- empty of anything more interesting than a feather- for anything of use. They are nearly settled on a plan that involves quite a bit of luck and a guard they can intimidate when shouts echo from down the hall and up the stairs to the rest of the hideout.

“What’s going on?” a small voice calls out two cell doors down. “Is someone out there?”

There is no answer, and the shouts only grow louder until a body crashes down the stairs and one of the hobbits gives a cut-off shriek. Two figures follow the body down, both with a good half foot on any of the bandits Isedd had seen. They stop at the hobbits’ cell and the conversation is too quiet to make out over the rising noise outside.

“Hey!” Isena shouts as they turn away with the hobbits. “What’s going on up there?” They trade glances and one of them takes a keyring from the other.

“Go on. I’ll get these ones.” The other nods and leaves, herding the hobbits ahead of him.

“I assume you are no friends to the Blackwolds,” the Man says, trying keys in their cell door in rapid succession. Closer, Isedd thinks he must be one of the Rangers he sees around Bree from time to time. “That makes us allies for the night.” The lock clicks and the door swings open. “This way.”

They follow the Ranger up the stairs and Isedd nearly trips over another body. Isena avoids the remains of a wooden table and finds her way unerringly to her spear, tossed in a corner with the rest of what had been taken from them on their capture. “You and your friend have been busy,” she comments, tossing Isedd whatever of his own things she finds. The Ranger gives them a tight grin.

“That we have.”

They leave the jail and find the few other buildings they had passed on their way in are in flames. “That wasn’t part of the plan,” the Ranger mutters. He looks them over. “Am I wrong to think the two of you can handle yourselves?”

Isena twirls her spear and grins, all teeth. “Not at all.”

“Then I will leave you to your own devices. Good luck.” The Ranger has taken no more than two steps, though, before he stops cold. Isena whirls in the same moment and Isedd twitches at the sudden sweat that washes over him for no discernable reason. “Not again,” the Ranger hisses under his breath. “Get out of here. Now,” he snaps at them. “If you see Strider in this mess before I do, tell him the Black Riders have caught up with us.” 

"What-" 

"Now!” The Ranger tries to shove Isedd along, further into the burning buildings, but a horrible shriek splits the air in front of them and the Ranger is as quickly hauling Isedd backwards, spitting curses. 

A shadow separates itself from the smoke and dancing light- a cloaked figure on a dark horse. The Ranger sighs and there is resignation in it. “Some week this has been.” He draws his sword. “What are you two still doing here? Get moving.”

The rider shrieks again and Isedd is running before he realizes it, Isena beside him. He stops when he can finally force himself to and looks back, breath rasping and body pulsing in time with his heart. He can see the Ranger silhouetted against the flames, sword drawn, as the mounted shadow bears down on him.

Isedd and Isena are far enough that the burning buildings no longer scorch their faces, but the noise of it still drowns near everything out. The other Ranger, Strider, appears behind the rider, but he is too late. Isedd can’t even make out what he screams- a name, probably- as his friend falls and the rider retreats.

Straight for them.

Isedd grabs Isena’s arm and runs.

They run for twenty minutes before Isena stops and grabs Isedd’s shoulder.

“What was that, Isedd?” Her eyes are wild in the moonlight and she looks little better now than she had in the middle of the fire.

“I don’t know,” he says quietly.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I have no idea what that thing was.” He shrugs helplessly at her look. “The Ranger called it a Black Rider, but…” It could have been no more than description, quite honestly, and even if it was a name it means nothing to Isedd.

“Why did it _feel_ like that?” Isena’s voice is very small, and so very unlike her. She rubs at the back of her neck. “Like something was watching me…” She shudders and Isedd pulls her into a tight hug and holds her until she calms.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know.” Silence.

“Come on. Let’s go home.” They start to walk again, and Isedd begins to realize just how long they have been out. “Alse will have a fit when we get back,” he says, not quite as lightly as he was aiming for. “Gone all night, and saved by a couple Rangers to boot. They’ll never let us hear the end of it.” Isena laughs quietly.

“You get to do the explaining,” she says.

“What?” Isedd says indignantly. “Why? They like you better.”

“Sure, but I’m injured.” Isena points at a large bruise under her eye. Isedd sighs theatrically.

“Fine. But only because you’re injured.”

Alse does, in fact, give them a lecture no less than forty-five minutes in length when they finally make it back to the farmhouse. They sit Isena without argument at the kitchen table and bustle about making up a honey-smelling paste they plaster over the growing bruises with practiced skill, all the while telling them off for their foolishness.

“And really! Rangers! What were you thinking? Everyone knows they’re a dangerous lot.”

“The Rangers weren’t the ones who locked us up,” Isena points out. Alse does not appreciate it.

“No, just the ones who set the whole place on fire with you still inside!” they cry, waving the paste around and nearly cracking Tam in the head with it as she ducks into the kitchen for a basket.

“Good to see you two made it back in one piece,” she says with a wave. “Do try to stay that way, will you?” Isena makes a rude gesture and Tam laughs and makes her escape. Alse smacks Isena lightly on the shoulder. “Oh, Bear’s back, too,” Tam calls back in the door.

“Honest, Alse,” Isedd says. “We owe the Rangers for last night. They didn’t have to help us, but they did.” Alse grumbles some more.

“We found your ring,” Isena adds before they can wind themself up again. Alse stops short when she pulls it out, a bit the worse for wear but still unmistakably Alse’s.

“Oh. Thank you.” They’re quiet for a moment, but it doesn’t last. “But I would much rather have the two of you here and safe!”

It’s hardly the last they hear of it that day- or the next- but Alse at least lets it go long enough for them to get a meal and some sleep. Whatever else Isedd may think of the Rangers after that night, he knows they are at least as dangerous as everyone seems to think- probably more so. He had only seen the one that had saved them and Strider, but bodies of the bandits had been everywhere. At least they could say with certainty that they wouldn’t be troubling Alse’s walks again in the near future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the nazgul suck  
> that's all have a nice day


	2. bad days in breeland (isena)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's largely a rewrite of the first i&i thing i wrote so that it fits better into the larger flow of isena and isedd's story

It is midafternoon by the time Isena wakes, sore and stiff. Alse is still grumpy with her and Isedd, but it is born of worry and love and Isena knows it will pass. Isedd was up and about well before her, telling Alse only that he had to find something in town before leaving. Isena busies herself with chores around the farm until Tam and Jon and little Adina drag her inside for dinner.

It’s late when Isedd finally makes it back, and Isena takes one look at his face and stands.

“Not tonight,” he says hurriedly. 

“Tomorrow then?”

“Most likely.”

“You can explain yourself whenever you would like,” Alse says dryly, not looking up from their bread dough. Isena looks at them.

“I don’t think you’ll like it very much.”

They whirl on Isena pointing with a flour-covered finger. “Don’t tell me you’re running back into trouble again, and after coming back this time looking like that.” Isena shrugs. The bruises look worse than they feel now.

“We won’t tell you then.”

“You-”

“Something happened in Archet,” Isedd interrupts. “I couldn’t figure out what, and no one will take kindly to us turning up in the middle of the night. Especially not with that face,” he adds with a grin. Isena raises a finger but Alse swats it back down.

They look between Isena and Isedd and sigh. “I suppose there’s no more stopping you tomorrow than there was last night. Will you at least try to be careful this time?”

Isena puts an arm around Alse and kisses their forehead. “What makes you think we weren’t careful last night?”

It's probably for the best that sense demands they wait until morning. They are both of them too ready to run headlong towards the first sign of trouble (and occasionally they're even aware of it). They spend the evening attending to their weapons and talking. Alse and their partners years ago had carefully taught Isedd and Isena to avoid the Rangers, and they have followed that instruction dutifully. The stories they hear seldom mention Rangers helping people- though these ‘stories’ are of course seventh and eighth hand tales at best and pure fabrication at worst- but Isena can’t put the vision of the Ranger facing down the rider and whatever terrible power accompanied it out of her mind. He could have run with them- he could have left them in the cell to burn. The more cynical part of her acknowledges that it may not have been _entirely_ altruistic- she and Isedd would have made a wonderful distraction while he and his friend made their escape. But… he had gone to face a fight with something that had sent Isena and Isedd both running- and he had been hurt in the process. Isena sighs and runs a hand down the smooth wood of her spear. There is nothing they can do about it now, but perhaps one day they will have the chance to repay a kindness. She glances at Isedd out of the corner of her eye. He’s staring through the far wall as if it has answers and she thinks this is something they think alike on.

They make for Archet the next day and arrive well before noon. They find the place is smoking ruin and are nearly run off without question, but one of the hobbits from the hideout-prison recognizes them. She’s had a rough couple of days, but she holds herself together enough to tell them about the Blackwold assault and the Black Rider, who reappeared just long enough to take the injured Ranger.

“They what?” Isedd says intently. Isena isn’t sure what it means to him. He hasn’t shared what he learned in Bree yet, if he found anything at all.

“It’s true,” another voice says behind them. A young man, tired and beaten by whatever happened here. “They told him to go with them and he just... did. Earlier today another Ranger came through looking for him, but he was too late.”

“Where is he now?” Isedd demands. The tired man blinks.

“Amdir? They took him, like Celandine just said-”

“No, the other one.”

“Oh. We call him Starling usually. He was headed for the Comb and Wattle last I knew- hey where are you going?” Isedd is already halfway back to Smelly.

Isena takes the man’s shoulder. “We’ll go see if we can help. In the meantime, you really should get some rest, friend.”

“I-” Isena leaves him talking to air and chases after Isedd.

Starling doesn’t seem to know what to do with them. “Why do you want to help so badly?” he asks.

“We very well could have died in that cell,” Isena says. “Your friends got us out. When the rider came, he- Amdir- protected us.” Starling watches them for a long time before sighing and sitting heavily.

“What do you know of the Black Riders?”

Isena knows only what she saw and felt that night. Isedd learned something of it in Bree, but he had not had time to do much studying. From what little Starling tells them, he likely wouldn’t have found much in Bree anyway. From the sound of it, Amdir’s situation is dire, and near hopeless. Starling still holds out hope that his friend can be saved, though. Isena is willing to try, and though Isedd’s face belies his lack of optimism, he too agrees to make the attempt. They spend the afternoon cobbling together a plan with Starling, and by nightfall Isena and Isedd are entering the Blackwolds’ hideout side by side.

It has barely been a day and a half, but Amdir looks so much worse. His skin is nearly translucent and Isena thinks that if the light hits just so, she will be able to see straight through him. Torchlight flickers and she frowns. She _can_ see straight through him. 

“Amdir?” she tries quietly. If the Ranger recognizes them, though, he gives no sign of it. She reaches for the iron-bar door.

Amdir screams. The sound drives Isena and Isedd both to their knees right beside the brigands that fill the cave. It hurts, but it seems to her that it must hurt less than whatever is happening to Amdir. There is an edge to the scream that no mortal voice can produce. It is far too much like the cry of the Black Rider amid the flames, but beneath it is only the sound of a man in terrible pain.

The door bursts from its hinges and very suddenly they are surrounded by enemies. _It’s hardly_ our _fault he broke out_ , Isena thinks irritably, catching the first one and throwing him back at his companions. She sets her back to Isedd’s.

“Yes, this was a perfect time to leave Bear outside!” Someone lands a punch on Isedd and he grunts.

“Terribly sorry I wasn’t expecting our undercover infiltration to need quite so much muscle.”

The rest of the Blackwolds scatter in Amdir’s wake and Isena and Isedd run after. Starling bars the way at the entrance. He holds his sword two-handed, his grip tight enough Isena can see the strain in his arms. Amdir is bent double before him, clutching his chest.

“Amdir?”

“Toradan..?”

Starling lets out a long breath and slowly loosens his grip on his sword. “I was afraid we were too late.”

It’s the wrong thing to say. “Too late?” The change in Amdir’s voice is sharp enough to cut with, swinging in a breath from pain to rage. “You were going to kill me?” Starling’s face goes tight.

“I-”

Isena _knows_ , as Amdir’s voice rises with his arm, what is coming, but Starling stands opposite her, Amdir in between, and she is too slow to stop it. She launches her spear, but it catches only air as Amdir vanishes into the night and Starling collapses.

Isedd is already at his side, a pale light dancing between his hands. “Sit him up,” he orders. Isena does so without question. Starling is shaking and struggling for every breath. Isena supports him and hushes him gently as the light in Isedd’s hands grows. When it fades, Starling is still trembling. His skin is cold and he is soaked in his own blood, but his breath is steady.

“Let’s get out of here,” Isena says. She half-carries Starling out of the cave and up the winding path slick with spray from the waterfall, Isedd walking slowly behind them.

The great advantage to leaving their friend, a great brown bear, outside of the caves is that the horses are still there, undisturbed by either Amdir or the fleeing Blackwolds. Isedd climbs into Leitha’s saddle and together they wrestle Starling up in front of him. Isena mounts Smelly and turns his head towards Combe.

“The Mustering Cave,” Starling says, waving the opposite direction. “Mundol. We must-”

“The only thing we _must_ is get you somewhere you can rest,” Isedd says. Starling is just this side of conscious and is only kept upright by Isedd’s arm. He shakes his head and even with Isedd’s grip he nearly topples. “You can barely _sit_ , let alone walk.”

Isena sighs as Starling tries to fight Isedd. He is weak enough that her brother can restrain him with ease. “Isedd. You heard what Amdir said in there. If he truly is hunting his brothers now, where could we leave Starling that’s safe? Wounded or not, he will be safer with us.” And she can guess as well as Isedd that the minute they let him out of their sight, he will be running after Amdir. Starling shoots her a grateful look and she tries to ignore it. “Where is this Mustering Cave of yours?”

“Across the Midgewater. Beyond the old fort.”

Isedd sighs and Isena knows he has given in. “We have hours yet until dawn, and riding through the marsh in the dark will be dangerous. How quickly will Amdir be able to cover the same distance?”

Starling shakes his head again. “Too soon.” He starts to struggle out of Leitha’s saddle again. “There’s no time to wait.” Isedd gives an exasperated sigh and tightens his hold on Starling. “Let me go.”

“Were you planning to walk the whole way there in this state?” Starling hesitates. “We’ll have to go slowly, but it will be faster than waiting.” Starling finally relaxes some. “For the record though,” Isedd adds, “I still think we should rest first.” Starling mutters something Isena can’t make out. “You can grumble when you have the strength to sit up on your own, Ranger.”

Bear leads the way and, even at their most cautious, it’s slow going and Smelly and Leitha don’t care for it. The dawn is slow in coming, all of them restless and risking speed well before they have true light. Dawn is just breaking when Starling finally points out the entrance to the Rangers’ cave. He is inside before either Isena or Isedd have dismounted, stumbling in his haste and calling for Mundol. Isena does not care at all for the cry that echoes out to them.

Mundol lies in a growing puddle of blood. The pool is small still- this was recently done. Starling is at his side, speaking softly. Isedd drops to his knees as soon as he sees Mundol is still alive.

“Amdir was just here,” Mundol says. “Reniolind. In the old Marshwater Fort. Please-” he chokes on a wet cough. Isedd’s light shines again. Starling’s eyes are tight and he hasn’t yet looked away from Mundol.

“He is young still. He only just earned his star,” Starling says. He starts to stand. “We can’t-” Isedd orders someone to hold Mundol, oblivious to the rest of the conversation, and Isena pushes Starling back down beside them.

“I’ll go. Follow when you can,” Isena says. She turns and runs, letting Starling’s questions fade behind her.

Leitha and Smelly hail from the fringes of the Westfold in Rohan, the same as Isena and Isedd. Leitha has the endurance to carry twice as much and still keep pace with all but the _mearas_. She is strong, but Smelly is _fast_. He is moving well before Isena has settled in the saddle, flying across the Midgewater in the grey half-light as if it was here that he was born instead. 

Reniolind nearly attacks her when she bursts through the door. She thinks far too late that this is maybe not the best way to make her case. He is still alive and uninjured, though, which was the goal. He knows nothing of Amdir’s fate until Isena tells him. _Starling was right_ , Isena thinks. Reniolind looks younger even than her youngest sister would be by now. She can read the skepticism in his face as she speaks, but she can’t force herself to focus enough to be more persuasive. It has been nearly a full day since she and Isedd set out for Archet- and a high-strung day at that. Something in her story must ring true, though, for Reniolind’s face softens and he looks away.

Something crashes deeper in the half-flooded halls of the old fort. “What was that?”

Amdir waits in the depths. Even now, Reniolind tries to reach him. To save him. Isena wants to believe that it can be done, but Starling had tried this too and nearly paid with his life. She keeps her shield up and does not relax her guard. 

Despite her exhaustion, she is fast enough this time. She knocks Reniolind aside and staggers under the force of Amdir’s blow. Her spear flashes in the torchlight and Amdir cries out, the sound more wraith than Man, now. He shouts something into the darkness above and flees. Moments later, hot, sharp pain and a great weight drive into her back. Reniolind is shouting something but she can’t make it out. She spins her spear in her hand and stabs blindly over her head. She hits something, but it is still a small eternity more until the thing releases her. She falls.

“Isena!” Reniolind is at her side, calling her name.

“He’s getting away,” she says through gritted teeth. She pulls herself up with her spear and staggers after Amdir.

Amdir himself is long gone by the time they make it into the woods beyond the tunnels, lit now in the dawn, and there is little sign of his passing. Isena’s right shoulder burns and there is an alien weakness in her legs. She never had stopped to look at what had stabbed her from behind. She sinks to the ground with a quiet groan. Reniolind is at her side again when she looks up.

“Let me see,” he says. His voice is steady, impressively so for all that has happened in the last half hour. Isena has no strength to fight him even if she were so inclined as he examines the wound. “You said your brother was not far behind you with Tor- ah, Starling- and Mundol. How far behind are they?” It is a ploy to keep her aware and engaged and she knows it. She has seen Isedd do the same many times. 

“I’m not sure.” She’s really not thinking terribly clearly just now. “Do you all have two names?” she asks. Reniolind laughs once.

“Most of us. Toradan gets his from the way he likes to _perch_ instead of sitting.” Several minutes later, his hands slow in their work. “Were you with Amdir when…”

“Yes,” Isena says very quietly. “He told us to run and... whatever that Rider was, we couldn’t stand against it.” She takes a deep breath and releases it bit by bit.

“He knew what was coming.” Reniolind’s voice is distant. “We all know to fear a morgul blade.” His voice catches. “He must have been terrified.”

The underbrush rustles. Reniolind is on his feet, bow in hand, squarely between Isena and the unknown creature before Isena can pull herself up, wincing at the pain in her shoulder. The creature sniffs at the air and growls. The sound is familiar.

“Bear?”

“Perhaps,” Reniolind says. “We should-”

“Hey, Bear! Over here!”

“What are you doing?” Reniolind hisses. Isena looks over.

“What am I..? Oh.” Bear comes bounding out of the trees straight for Isena. She pushes Reniolind’s bow aside. “Reniolind, this is Bear, a friend of my brother’s. Bear, this is Reniolind.” Bear sniffs first at Isena, concerned, and then suspiciously at Reniolind, who looks equally wary.

“At your service… Master Bear.” Bear sniffs at Reniolind again before fussing at Isena some more.

“Oh look, he likes you,” Isena says. She sits and waits until she can hear two sets of hoofbeats approaching.

“I want nothing to do with another one of the hairy, overgrown spiders in those tunnels,” she announces when Leitha and Smelly emerge from the trees. Her shirt is in shreds and her shoulder is wrapped as well as could be expected with what she and Reniolind had on them. Isedd comes and looks her over critically while Reniolind helps Mundol and Starling- Toradan, Isena supposes- down from the horses. “I much prefer the pests we had at home.”

“You mean the marauding orcs that set our house on fire?” Isedd does not look away from his task. Isena laughs.

“Yes. Those ones.” More seriously, she says: “We lost Amdir.”

“But it looks like you managed to protect Reniolind.” Isedd hauls Isena to her feet and stays close. 

Mundol, Toradan, and Isena are all injured and Isedd is as exhausted as any of them. They make for Bree with as much speed as they are able, eager not to stay alone and so weakened without proper shelter, Smell and Leitha valiantly plodding along.

“This will place all three of you and your captain in the same place,” Isedd says. “Amdir may very well come after you even in the middle of Bree if he learns that you have survived.”

“I doubt it,” Toradan says. “But… I may be wrong. Either way, we stand a better chance together than apart.” Isena nods to herself and leans on Bear for support.

Isena nearly pities Barliman Butterbur. There are far more Rangers than he is comfortable with standing in his common room, some of them clearly not well. Then again, the number of Rangers he is comfortable with might peak at one.

Strider, whose name the others have not let slip in near-death panics yet, bundles all five of them into his room at once. None of them are small people and it is a tight fit. If they were less battered, it would be comical. He hears their tale in full and afterwards examines each of his men for himself. He offers the same attention to Isena and Isedd with thanks for protecting his kin. The conversation lulls and he sighs.

“We must deal with Amdir, and soon.” What levity they have found fades to grimness. They are all too aware of this truth. “For tonight, though, rest here.” He leaves them in the room for a time and returns with warm food enough for all of them. It is not long before the weight of the last day and a half begins to press down upon them. Mundol is the first asleep, curled into the corner in the single small bed. Toradan is near nodding off, too, and at Strider’s urging he wraps his cloak around himself and lays down beside Mundol. Isena is half-asleep herself, head resting on her folded arms.

“We should go,” Isedd says in her ear. Isena _hmm_ s and barely opens her eyes.

“You are welcome to stay, if you wish,” Strider says. “Although,” he looks around the crowded room. “I understand if you do not.” 

Isena’s eyes are closed again before she knows it. She tracks the others by their voices though she doesn’t bother to separate one word from another. Something warm and smelling of pine needles falls over her and she sighs contentedly. Reniolind’s voice falls silent, and in time so does Isedd’s. She hears the clatter of empty wooden dishes as someone clears away what remains of their meal, and some time after that a breath that blows out a candle. After that she knows no more.


	3. midnight pie (isedd)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> with special guest appearance from rani and an almost-appearance from est!

The next day is quiet, and though Isena says nothing Isedd knows she is glad of the rest. She has yet to tell him her side of things, but whatever happened in the tunnels under the Midgewater drained her more than she is likely to admit. Another Ranger appears in the midafternoon and by nightfall there is a plan in place to corner Amdir. (Again)

Isena stands, looking for all the world as if she intends to follow Strider and the others to Ost Baranor. Isedd grabs her arm. 

"I'm fine," she says, shaking him off. She looks well enough to fight, it's true, and she has certainly picked fights in worse shape before, but she is still moving slower than normal and she winces any time she moves her arm too quickly. 

“Of course you are,” he says. “But really, you don’t have to come.” She shoots him a look. “We have the numbers for this. You don't have to push yourself this time." She slowly eases her grip on her spear, releasing a long breath. "Besides," Isedd adds. "Someone has to make sure those two don't try to trail after us." Toradan and Mundol start guiltily from where they have been whispering in the corner.

"Fine," Isena sighs. She passes her spear to Isedd. 

"Isena-"

"It's a far sight better than that twig you're carrying right now, and if I would end up needing it here, I think we'll have a number of other things to be worrying about.”

Isedd relents and takes the spear. The smooth wood of it is familiar- he had carved these designs into the shaft himself. It doesn't sit as comfortably in his hands as his own, of course, but that had not escaped the Blackwolds with him. Even if it had survived the fire, he is in no hurry to go back there to look for it.

One of the Rangers waves for his attention. It's time. He takes Isena's final admonition to be careful and goes. Reniolind gives him a strained smile and the others have only grim nods. As they draw closer to the ruins, Reniolind too goes quiet, withdrawing into the hood of his heavy cloak. When they do speak, it is quiet and not meant for Isedd's ears. He tries to overhear as little as possible.

It's no surprise, really. Isedd and Isena are strangers to them, however much they have tried to help these past few days. Isedd's healing skills are likely the only reason his presence here is tolerated at all. This is a matter of the Rangers’ and he is there only by chance. 

Another Ranger he does not recognize appears. “Gazer is at the other entrance with the elf Soloist sent. Give me two minutes and start.” Those with Isedd nod once and the man vanishes.

When they return to the Prancing Pony, they have little to tell, and if there is good news it is that they have no more bad. Isena and Isedd make quiet goodbyes and go home, leaving the Rangers to their grief.

Alse yells at them again, but they move on soon enough. Isedd and Isena are quiet after their return, but they slip back into the routines of the farm as if nothing has changed. Tam and Jon are curious enough to ask questions but polite enough not to press too hard. Adina is eight years old and possesses none of their tact, and follows Isedd and Isena around for days with questions.

“I suppose everything is terribly interesting when you’re eight,” Isedd says to Bear one day, lounging in the shade of one of the old apple trees and scraping away at a length of wood. “Jon gave me a look when I told her about the Black Rider, but I don’t think she really understood it as anything more than the bad guy of the story.” Bear huffs and Isedd nods. “True. She understood enough not to ask any more about Amdir.” Bear’s ears twitch at the name and Isedd ruffles his fur and sighs. “I know.” Isedd returns to the new spear shaft he is carving and twenty minutes pass in silence. Bear nudges him. 

_That will be my name._

Isedd pauses in his work. “You have finally decided then?” It has been years, long enough that Isedd often forgets his chosen name for human tongues is not actually Bear. 

_Yes._

“May I ask your reasons?” 

_No._

Isedd shrugs. “Very well.” He can guess enough of them on his own anyway.

One week passes uneventfully, then two. Isedd and Isena ride into Bree-town with Tam and Jon and a cart full of early October harvest. Tam and Jon man a market stall while Isedd and Isena take the off-shift to find a meal at the Pony. The place is crowded today, but they manage to find two seats at the bar long enough to inhale some of Butterbur’s warm stew. Isedd picks a sprig of some spice or other from the bowl and studies it in the dim light of the common room.

“It’s thyme,” he decides finally. Isena looks over.

“It’s not thyme.” She finishes her own stew. Isedd continues to study the leaves.

“I think it is,” he says after several more minutes.

“I’m telling you, Isedd, it’s not thyme.” 

“Yes it is! Look at this. How is it not thyme?” He waves the leaf in her face to prove his point.

“Because it’s not thyme! Honestly, I thought you were supposed to be the expert on these things.”

“Fine, what is it then, if you’re so certain I’m wrong?”

“Oregano. It’s oregano, Isedd.” 

Someone snorts into their drink very close by. Isedd and Isena turn and find a young hobbit woman wiping her face and fighting a grin. 

“Sorry,” she says when she notices them watching. “I was eavesdropping. I thought the conversation was going to be much more interesting than spices, though.”

Isedd can practically feel the easy contentment he has been stewing (haha) in for most of the day fall apart. “How so?” The hobbit gives them an easy smile.

“‘It’s not time’ is much more exciting when said about the hour and not the herb.” Isena stares the stranger down for a long moment before cracking a hint of a smile.

“She has a point there.”

Isedd doesn’t smile. “Why were you eavesdropping?”

The hobbit shrugs and leans back in her chair. “I was looking for something interesting to do.”

“Really,” Isedd says flatly.

“Believe me or not, it’s up to you, of course, but I am bored and looking for a job.”

Isena grins more easily. “Well, sorry to disappoint, but we’re hardly looking to hire.”

“Ah well. Maybe next time.” The hobbit grins back and drops a few coins on the bar with her empty cup. She has to stretch to an absurd degree to manage it, but neither Isedd nor Isena comment. She holds her hand out. “Rani Sandyhill.”

“Isena,” Isena says, taking it. “The botanically challenged one here is my brother Isedd.” Isedd rolls his eyes but takes Rani’s hand as well.

“Pleasure meeting such interesting people.” She shoulders her pack. “I do hope you get your plants sorted out, by the way. I’m pretty sure it was rosemary in the stew today.” She leaves them both protesting in her wake and walks out the door with a grin. 

“An interesting hobbit,” Isena says, well after Rani has vanished from sight.

“For sure.” Isedd is not at all sure why he thinks he should feel more wary of the hobbit girl than he does. She was odd, but not worryingly so. He shrugs to himself and follows Isena to the stall to take over for Tam and Jon.

A month after the run-in with the Blackwolds, they meet Reniolind again. Though they have largely moved on from those few nights, they still make rounds around the farm more often than not. They have found nothing more exciting than a disinterested wolf before this.

Isena is the one who spots the Ranger. “Reniolind? What are you doing out here?”

Reniolind resolves from the shadows, lowering a drawn bow. “I suppose I could ask the same of you two.”

“We live here,” Isena says dryly. She loosens her shield. “I hope it isn’t more trouble that brings you this way.” Reniolind shakes his head.

“Nothing like that.” He hesitates for just a moment. “Just a patrol.”

“A patrol?”

Reniolind shrugs. “It’s what we do.”

It is the end of that late-night conversation, but it is far from the last time they encounter the Rangers on their patrols. Usually it’s Reniolind, though after Toradan and Mundol are recovered enough to resume their Ranger-work, Isedd and Isena cross paths with them as well. They grow friendly, and soon it is not uncommon for them to share a table at the Prancing Pony when chance brings them into Bree at the same time, never mind the disapproving looks from others in the common room or from Alse.

One late autumn afternoon Reniolind comes to the house itself- or, more precisely, Adina drags him in by the hand, insisting that she has Invited Him For Dinner, which she is perfectly allowed to do since Isedd and Isena have been insisting that the Rangers are good, actually. Reniolind seems vaguely embarrassed to have been spotted and kidnapped by an eight-year-old, but he doesn’t fight Adina.

“I was picking berries with Amdir,” Adina says. “And then I heard something in the woods. Amdir didn’t look worried though, so I went and said hi!”

 _Ah_ , Isedd thinks. _That would explain it_. He had never mentioned the new name to any of the Rangers. That may have been a nasty shock for Reniolind.

Alse disapproves of the whole situation, but they can hardly rescind an invitation given by someone else- especially not Adina. Reniolind is exceedingly polite though, and by the end of the meal Alse even has a smile for him, and sends him on his way with a basket full of baked goods.

“I will have quite a bit of explaining to do when I reach the rest of my patrol,” Reniolind says mournfully as Isedd and Isena see him to the edge of the trees.

“Give them some of the apple tarts,” Isena advises. “It always smooths things over for me.”

\---

It’s late November when Isena returns from an evening in Bree unusually quiet. Isedd finds her in the kitchen well after the rest of the family has turned in for the night, slicing apples. Isedd perches himself in an out-of-the-way corner with a small chunk of wood from the pile and his small, sharp knife.

“So what happened in Bree?”

Isena doesn’t answer for several minutes, carving up another apple.

“Do you ever think about going home?”

Isedd stops his own idle carving. “I take it you don’t mean this house.” He turns the wood in his hands. “Sometimes. Why do you ask?” Isena shakes her head.

“It’s something Toradan mentioned. They have had run-ins with more and more orcs of late, and many of them apparently wear the mark of the White Hand.”

“The White Hand as in _Isengard_? Why would orcs- much less orcs _here_ \- be wearing the Wizard’s sign?”

Isena shrugs and starts adding spices to the bowl of apples. “There aren’t very many possibilities.”

Isedd puts down wood and knife. “You think Saruman has allied with them?” Isena dumps flour into another bowl. “That doesn’t make sense. Isengard has defended the Westfold for generations.”

“He didn’t defend _us_ ,” Isena says very quietly. Isedd looks away. “I don’t remember much of that night, but the orcs were the only thing that came from the north.”

She isn’t wrong. The raiders had been fast and the fires bright, but if he thinks hard enough he remembers, or perhaps imagines, a splash of white down the fronts of some of them.

“There could be another explanation,” Isedd says, because the implications of Saruman turning on Rohan are far too large.

“The Rangers have had word that the White Wizard has betrayed us.”

“From where?”

“They have their own Wizard they talk to, apparently. I’m not entirely clear on the details- and it didn’t seem Toradan was, either- but their Wizard went to Saruman for help and was imprisoned instead.”

“That’s quite a story.”

“It is.”

Isedd takes up the wood again. “And you want to go back?”

“I think we have to.”

“And do what when we get there? March into Isengard and demand answers ourselves?”

Isena waves a hand. “Of course not-”

“Singlehandedly convince the entirety of Rohan of this betrayal- without any proof of our own?”

“Not-”

“What, then?”

“I don’t know!” Isena lowers her voice, and it seems to cost her a great deal to do so. “But we can hardly stay here in Bree and do _nothing_. How can we know the truth and just sit on it, safe here in the north?”

“From the sound of things, even here may not be so safe before long.”

“We may still have family there, Isedd. We don’t know what happened to most of them.”

“And we have family here, now.”

“Do you think I don’t realize that?”

Isedd sighs. “I know you do. But seriously, what do you think going back to Rohan will accomplish?”

Isena carefully lifts the crust she has been working on into a pie dish. “I don’t know. Maybe it will be common knowledge by the time we get there, or maybe we find out it was all a misunderstanding. Maybe we find something we can fight. Maybe there’s the _faintest_ chance we see some of our family again. Wouldn’t that much be worth it?”

It wouldn’t be worth losing what family they had left. “We barely survived ourselves, Isena.”

“I know.”

Isedd rubs at his face. “It’s too late to be making these kinds of decisions.”

Isena nods along at that. She smiles happily at her midnight pie, but it drops away when she looks at the oven and finds it cold. Isedd laughs and takes the pie. “I’ll take care of it. Go get some sleep.”

“You sure?” she says around a yawn, as if to prove his point.

“Positive. I doubt I’ll be sleeping for awhile now.”

“Sorry.”

Eventually she goes, and Isedd spends the next two and a half hours whittling and waiting and wondering. He hadn’t lied to his sister- he has thought about returning, and fairly often at that. More than once the desire to know what had happened to their old farm near Marton had nearly overcome him, but on its heels too often came memory. 

It had been the middle of the night. At first they thought their neighbors had some emergency- it would have to be urgent indeed to send them so far at so late an hour. It wasn’t until they smelled smoke that they realized something was wrong. Their oldest siblings had stormed into their rooms and rushed them to the barn, ignoring all of their questions and ordering them onto the horses with only the bare minimum of gear.

“Go, and don’t look back,” Ismar said, throwing open the doors. Isedd had led the flight, but the fire had spread through the dry fields at impossible speed, and beyond the whoosh of the flames there were shouts and howls that couldn’t quite be wolves. Smelly had bolted, ignoring Isedd entirely. Isena on Leitha was the only one to follow after him. Their siblings and cousins were lost to the madness behind them, and all Isedd remembers of what came next is a week of terror and a desperate need to put it all behind them, until at last they stumbled half-dead into Alse south of their little farm.

He is afraid of what they will find if they go back. Some of their family they know to be dead, but anything else is guesswork and hope. At best they might be reunited with their cousins and siblings. At worst, they are the only survivors.

Isedd sighs and sets the pie to cool, and goes to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and then they skipped pretty much everything in the eriador quests lol
> 
> 'gazer' is torthann, and 'soloist' is langlas


	4. the mountains (isena)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, staring at my overuse of italics: _why did i do this_

They talk off and on again over the next few days about returning. Isena is less ready to leave than she had been in the middle of the night, but she is no less certain that they should. Isedd _is_ right- even here there is trouble stirring, as their run-ins with the Blackwolds prove, but if her memory of home can at all be trusted, no one in Rohan will think to distrust the White Wizard until it is far too late.

Alse and the others don’t want them to go. Isena and Isedd try to keep it quiet, but there is no hiding the maps or the questions about roads and distances and supplies, nor the subtle defences Isedd builds into the fences. He worries about their family here, but Isena has more faith. Jon and Tam are, if not soldiers, hardly helpless, and Alse is plenty clever. So is Adina, in her own way, though Isena will be quite happy if Adina never has to rely on that fact to survive. Even if they stayed, there is only so much Isena and Isedd would be able to do against a concerted attack.

“Leave Amdir,” Isena suggests one evening. “He won’t be able to keep pace with Smelly and Leitha all the way to Rohan, and I doubt he’ll enjoy being on the road in the middle of winter.”

“I will talk to him,” Isedd says, but promises no more than that. Isena shrugs. She doesn’t speak bear, but she doesn’t think Amdir will object to staying close to the farm through the cold months, even if he forgoes hibernation.

Isena trusts, too, that the Rangers will continue to keep their watch. Even Reniolind hasn’t told her much about their internal affairs, but she knows now a little of what they do. She wonders if any of them might be persuaded to look in on the farm in particular- her apple tarts had, apparently, been a great success. The Rangers had had some troubles in the north recently, something about the old realm of Angmar and a company long thought lost. The Blackwolds were involved too, somehow, but Isena never did get all the details, and it seems to be resolved now.

Despite Isena’s early confidence, the planning does not go very smoothly at all. Another month’s time finds them drinking and brooding together in the Pony.

“There have to be more passes through the mountains,” Isena protests. “The Misty Mountains are miles long. There has to be something viable between the High Pass and the Gap.”

“If you know anyone who knows a halfway passable path over the mountains in the middle of winter, please feel free to share,” Isedd says, head flat on the table, having heard this same point three times in the last hour.

“Well if you don’t have anything to add either-”

“You could go through Moria,” a new voice says. They look up together. Isena has absolutely no idea how long Rani has been lounging at their table.

“Moria,” Isena says. She is no historian, but she has heard tales enough. “Infamous for being full of darkness and death and unlucky dwarves?”

“The one and only,” Rani says, far too cheerfully.

“Great, just making sure I wasn’t confusing it with some other, less terrible Moria.”

Rani does not dignify that with a response. “Anyway, I know someone who says Moria is well on its way to being a safe road through the mountains once more.”

Isena squints at her. “Are you serious?”

“Of course! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“A certain conversation regarding spices comes to mind,” Isedd mutters.

“Oh, hush. Dwarves from the Blue Mountains pass through the Shire more regularly than you might think, especially since old Mad Baggins’ adventure- though that’s coming up on eighty years ago now. There were some from the far side of the Misty Mountains not so long ago, and they came back through with a whole train of Blue Mountain dwarves, headed south.”

“And you’re telling us this because..?”

“I count a few of them among my friends. I’m sure they would be glad to help you through the mines.”

There are more details to it all than that, of course, but Isena and Isedd have been talking in circles for weeks and getting nowhere. Rani pens a letter for them to her friends and they start to gather supplies in earnest.

Tam nearly convinces Isena to stay, sitting in her room one night fiddling with one of Isedd’s tiny carvings while Isena packs.

“You really do mean to leave,” Tam says quietly. Isena looks up. “I really wasn’t sure, you know? You kept talking about it but you guys have been here even longer than me and I just… I dunno, I can’t imagine this place without you.”

Isena sighs. “Yeah. We’re leaving next week.”

“Do you really have to?” Tam asks plaintively. “It’s winter already, and you mean to travel through the mountains! Is this… mission of yours really so important that you have to go now?”

Isena lets her hands fall to the side and looks up at Tam. “It is. We-”

“But why?” Tam cries. “What does Rohan have that we don’t, here?”

“It’s… complicated.”

“I have time.”

“Do you want the whole story, Tam? From beginning to end?”

“Tell me,” she says, her eyes fierce. “I want to understand why you’re abandoning us.”

Isena flinches, but she stuffs a length of twine in her pack and joins Tam on the bed. “I was fifteen. It was spring, technically, but it wasn’t much warmer than it is right now…” She and Isedd have never made a secret of their history, but Alse is the only one who ever pried, and even they had not pressed for everything. Isena tells Tam now, about the raid and their panicked flight north through Dunland, about her conversations with Reniolind and the others, about what Saruman’s ill will could mean. “If you want to know more about the history of the Eorlingas, I would ask Isedd, but I hardly need to be a historian to know that most trust the White Wizard without thought.”

Tam is silent for several minutes, still turning the little wooden bear over and over as if it will manifest a better answer for her. “Why does it have to be you?”

The question gives Isena pause. “I guess there isn’t any reason in particular it _must_ be us, but if we do nothing, and the next person who could does nothing, and the person after them does nothing, who _does_ do something?”

“And what if you get there and someone already has done something? What’s the point of you going, then?”

“Then we will follow their lead until it is done. And if no one else has, it might as well be us.”

“But it may as well be someone else- someone who actually lives there, has a stake in it-”

“Do you think Isedd and I don’t have a stake in what happens in Rohan?” Isena says, more sharply than she means. “Duty to people or king aside, some of our family may still be there, and right in the middle of the fighting.” Tam falls into sullen silence. “You won’t be defenseless here while we’re gone, and we won’t stay away forever.”

“You really think so?”

“I know so,” Isena says seriously. Tam shakes her head and sets the figurine down. Isena pulls the younger woman into a hug. “I promise, Tam. We’ll come back.”

They see Rani once more before they go. She falls in with them on their last trip out of Bree, chattering about local gossip that they would be sure to miss out on after leaving in between her own brand of advice on travel and on dealing with the dwarves. _She’s worried about her friends_ , Isena thinks. For all her confident cheer, Rani has heard stories about Moria, too, and from the sound of things not all of this expedition was certain of its wisdom. In the end, it doesn’t change things, Isena supposes. She and Isedd are still going. If the old dwarf kingdom is impassable, they will try the mountains, or south through Dunland if that too fails. Isena will only take that path as a last resort, though.

They set out the next morning, the air chilled enough to turn their breath to mist. The others all gather to see them off, even Adina, rubbing her eyes and hanging close to Jon. Isena ruffles her hair and she grins sleepily. Smelly and Leitha are eager to be off, pawing at the ground and nudging at Isena and Isedd when they don’t move fast enough for the horses’ liking. Amdir is there too, sitting beside Alse and watching Isedd mournfully.

“We’ll be back,” Isedd tells him quietly. “I know. We’ll be careful.”

They ride out. Isena keeps a close watch, but she finds no sign of the Rangers. She had meant to tell them goodbye at the least, perhaps to learn more about what they were riding into, but she hasn’t seen any of them since that night with Toradan in Bree. Nothing for it now, she supposes.

It is a long ride, and cold, but blessedly uneventful. They pass through hills and forests and narrow valleys until at last they find the dry riverbed that runs off into the mountains to the east. They have been passing scattered elf-ruins for the last two days now, and there have been more and more signs of recent passage. After another day they come upon what’s left of… perhaps a ballroom? It’s Isena’s best guess, and there’s little enough aside from the cracked stonework skeleton to give her any more clues. 

“Who goes there?” someone calls out as they approach. 

“Travellers from the north,” Isena calls back. 

“We’re looking for a dwarf by the name of Thórgnyr,” Isedd adds.

“What do you want with him?” The stranger sounds confused, though they still haven’t revealed themself. 

“We have a message here from a friend.”

“And what friend might that be?”

Isedd groans under his breath. “Is it at all possible to have this conversation beside a fire,” Isena says before he can get too much more impatient. “Or at the very least out of the wind?”

Silence for a moment. “Bring your horses around the side there. It’ll be warm enough for the time being.”

“Thank you kindly,” Isena says with a smile for their invisible watcher and leads Leitha around a length of weathered wall that does block the wind quite effectively. A few minutes later a dwarf stomps around the corner, hands stuck under his armpits.

“Well, here I am. I assume you are not the friends sending the message, unless I have had one too many knocks on the head recently.”

“We were sent by a hobbit up in Bree,” Isena says, passing over the letter. “Rani said to find one Thórgnyr near this dry riverbed.”

“Rani, you say,” Thórgnyr says, already reading the letter. “Ah! I hardly thought she would send help after us so quickly, but it is a welcome surprise.”

“Help?” Isedd says.

Thórgnyr looks up. “You are the sellswords, aren’t you? Or,” he looks them over, “sellspears?”

Rani, as it turns out, introduced Isena and Isedd in her letter as adventurers and hired blades that might be able to help the Iron Garrison guard their supply lines out of Moria. The letter- which they had, apparently, been expected to read, despite it being distinctly addressed to someone else- made no mention of them only wanting to cross the mountains. Thórgnyr seems more resigned than surprised when they mention this.

“If nothing else, I suppose it’s proof you did actually come from Rani,” he says with a sigh. “You may as well come in to the fire. We may still be able to help each other.” They follow Thórgnyr into the outpost, where he waves off a handful of other dwarves. “We have made it to the First Hall, but it’s no easy trip yet, even without…” He falls silent. “Well, that’s no matter, really. We have supplies here for the far garrison, and if you want to reach the far side you are welcome to accompany them.” Quieter, he adds “Mahal knows we could use some extra protection.” He raises his voice again. “Lís! When do your goats leave?”

“Two hours still,” someone calls back from a side room. “Unless Sigthorn makes it back earlier. Are you trying to get rid of us?”

“Never,” Thórgnyr laughs. “I have a couple more guards for you.”

“Oh? Who?” A dwarf enters the main room, not looking up from a stack of pages. “Siggir? Vargym?”

“Taller than them,” Thórgnyr says. Lís finally looks up, almost pulling something in her neck.

“Who- oh not more elves, thank the _Seven_ Fathers. Bori's friend is the only tolerable one of the whole lot, and she left days ago.”

“Has there been any word about that mission, by the way?”

Lís shrugs. “You heard the last news the same time as me. Ask Sigthorn when he gets here.”

Thórgnyr turns back to Isena and Isedd. “Well, if you wish to pass through Khazad-dûm, Lís here is taking the latest shipment of supplies later today. Even if you move on afterwards, it will be safer for you and Lís both to travel together.”

“It sounds like a fair deal,” Isena says. Thórgnyr nods once and leaves them to their own devices for the next two hours.

“I am getting the sense that this won’t be as smooth as Rani promised,” she mutters to Isedd as they look after Smelly and Leitha. Their neighbors in the makeshift stable are all hardy mountain goats.

“What was your first clue?” Isedd says with a wry grin. Isena swats at him. “Even so, I’m sure this will be far preferable to going over the mountains.”

Lís comes to the stable to collect a number of the goats. “Sigthorn has just arrived. We’ll be leaving in the next quarter hour, if you still mean to accompany us.”

“What about our horses?” Isena says before Lís can leave, eyeing the goats all around. Lís shrugs.

“You’ll never be able to ride them through the mines,” she says, and leaves. Isena and Isedd trade glances.

“Some of the paths here are treacherous even for the goats,” a newly arrived dwarf says, leading a number of different goats in to replace those Lís had just removed. “You really will be much better off leaving them here or setting them loose.” 

That is hardly an option. Dangerous it may be, but Smelly and Leitha are as much family as their cousins. Isedd mutters to the horses for a time and, when he finishes, announces that they are as unwilling to leave as Isena and Isedd.

Lís's face is impassive when they join the caravan leading the horses in spite of all advice to the contrary. “Well, if nothing else, the wargs will go for them first. We’re not waiting around if they cause problems.” Isena and Isedd nod their understanding and they set out.

Isena finds it very hard to keep her eyes on the rocky paths before her. Even shrouded in darkness and a millenium of occupation, the scale of the construction of the ancient dwarven realm staggers her mind. And this is the newer end of Khazad-dûm, according to Lís. The hall that is their final destination is older even than the massive cavern Lís calls the Great Delving. Isena sneaks a glance at Isedd. He at least seems to be paying attention to where to put his feet.

Lís is surprisingly eager to talk with them after the first few hours, chatting about anything and everything- but also never taking her eyes off their surroundings. The others in the goat train chime in from time to time, but most of their focus seems to be on the darkness around them. Lís tells them about her wife, Kirthi, who is part of the fight for the waterworks down below, and the progress the Iron Garrison has made, and of what they still hope to find.

"Assuming Lenglammel and her folk ever leave off on the 'digging too deep'," Lís grumbles. 

"That doesn't sound like any dwarvish name I've ever heard," Isena comments.

"From the sound of things, you've hardly heard a great number of dwarvish names to begin with," Lís says. "You're not wrong, though…" She spends the better part of the last hour to the Crossroads explaining in no uncertain terms her opinions on the elves that have been sent to Moria to aid the Iron Garrison. “Supposedly,” Lís adds. “From what I hear, they have done little to help and much to belittle.”

They trade goods and a number of companions at the Chamber of the Crossroads before setting out for the Twenty-first Hall. It takes the better part of the trip for Isena to put two and two together and realize that these elves Lís and the others so dislike hail from none other than the Dwimordene. Her old home was hardly in the shadow of the wood, but she has still heard stories enough of the place. She understands the dwarves’ distrust immediately.

“There are _some_ that have been less unpleasant,” Kafli, one they had picked up at the Crossroads, protests with a half-grin.

“Which ones,” Lís mutters.

“Bori and Bróin’s friend, for one. What was her name… Ess-something? I forget- I never met her and now she’s off on the-” Kafli shoots the briefest of glances at Isena and Isedd. “On their secret mission.”

“Fine,” Lís huffs. “ _One_ useful elf, and she didn’t come through the eastern doors.”

“What about the two in Buzun-ghâr?”

“What about them?”

This goes on for most of the journey to the Twenty-first Hall. Lís is not fond of elves, not even the absent Ess-something. They spend the rest of the evening and the night in the Twenty-first Hall. Before Isena can find an out-of-the-way spot to set up for the night, a young dwarf who introduces himself as Wíli corners her and drags her off to a makeshift workshop at one end of the Hall, where a number of his friends are going back and forth in Khuzdul. Wíli gets their attention and they eagerly show off several pieces of armour, apparently a project abandoned by some long-dead dwarven smith and intended as a gift for some equally long-dead man. Isena has no idea what they want her for- most of what she knows about armour is how to stab around it.

“Can we see if this would fit you?”

The dwarves, it seems, have been working off half-mouldered plans they found in the same old workshop as the armour, but had been lacking anyone with the right Mannish proportions to model for them. Isena shrugs and lets them adjust straps and rivets until Isedd tracks her down. 

They find her again before Lís’s caravan sets out the next morning. They don’t look like they’ve slept and haul Isena back to test the armour one last time. It fits surprisingly well, considering the time that has passed, even if it is hardly what she is accustomed to wearing to a fight. Wíli and his friends cheer themselves on a job well done, and wake anyone who was not yet up.

“What do you plan to do with this now?” Isena asks, undoing a buckle.

The dwarves stop. “We… didn’t get that far.”

“ _I_ just wanted to see if the plans were viable. There are a few things I want to try my own hand at now that we’ve seen these…”

“It was to be a gift, once,” one of them says. “And it certainly isn’t made for a dwarf.”

Isena doesn’t end up taking the whole suit- it’s far heavier than anything she has ever fought in before, not to mention the sheer amount of weight they would then be obliged to move. She ends up with an armoured sleeve, which looks ridiculous but does give her some protection on the arm not covered by her shield.

She is very glad she has kept any of it by noon (it feels like noon, at least. She’s starting to get hungry). The goblins are on foot, and seem as surprised to stumble into the caravan as Lís and company are, but they waste no time in drawing their weapons. The fight is quick and brutal, and the new armour saves Isena from a number of small cuts to her spear-arm.

“Take anything useful and push the rest into the chasm,” Lís says afterwards, unusually cold. She points out a crack in the stone that Isena had most certainly not noticed before. Lís’s people comply quickly and before long they are moving again. There is no light-hearted chat this time.

Kafli splits off from their train with his cousin Kúli and a couple other friends, off to investigate the old mining veins that lie beneath Caradhras, waving to Lís and the others as they go.

The stone halls and galleries wind from the Twenty-first Hall to the Second, where great stone trees lit by massive braziers at their feet arc into shadows above.

“Your horses cross last,” Lís says when they come to a narrow wooden bridge over a much larger, more obvious drop into oblivion. “Goblins keep knocking this down…” She mutters a number of things in Khuzdul that Isena is reasonably sure are curses.

The bridge looks sturdy enough. There is a noticeable sway to it, though, and Isena holds her breath the whole way across. She can see the whole thing move when Leitha steps onto it, and Leitha stops dead until Isedd walks back out and gently coaxes first her and then Smelly across the gap.

“Let’s not do that again,” Isena says faintly, stroking Smelly, who snorts agreement.

Lís, despite all her promises to leave them behind if the horses proved too slow, is waiting for them, and the last of the journey to the First Hall is quiet. Isena catches wingbeats just before a large eagle lands squarely in Leitha’s saddle. Isedd catches Isena’s eye and shrugs.

“There are more than enough small tunnels a bird could use to get in here.”

“So it seems. A new friend of yours?” 

“You were off with Wíli and his friends and I was bored.”

They make their goodbyes with Lís and her party, who will start back to the Twenty-first Hall after a rest, and after two very long days in darkness, Isena and Isedd step back into the open air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eventually they'll run into est for real lol


	5. avoiding lothlórien for dummies (isedd)

Their eyes are spared the shock of noontime sun, the night outside making the transition far more gentle than it might otherwise have been. There is a lake beyond the stairs and the remains of a broad road point towards it, where bright stars lie netted in dark waters.

“Kheled-zâram,” Lís says reverently. Despite the goodbyes, she stands beside them and gazes upon the lake. “I always make a point to look at it before I return to the mines.” She glances up at them. “I am rather surprised the horses made the journey. They’re good beasts." She pats Smelly. “Safe journeys to you.”

“To you as well,” Isedd says. His sister is still entranced by the lake. Lís nods once and goes back inside.

“Well.” Isedd says. “Shall we take a closer look?”

The stars in the Mirrormere are even more brilliant up close, and they are not the only ones admiring it. They stay that night in Mekhem-bizru on the shore and leave south and east along the Celebrant with the dawn.

Within just a few hours they are in sight of the Dwimordene. Isedd thinks they should be able to skirt the wood without ever coming under the golden leaves, if the maps Thálfi had shown him the night before were any good at all. They stay on the southern shore, using the river as their guide. Isedd doesn’t think he sees Isena’s hand leave her spear at all for the next three days. 

Though the true bounds of the Golden Wood seem to end at the bank of the Celebrant, it seems some of the trees at least have, in fact, spread beyond the river. Isedd isn’t sure if these really are less brilliant than their cousins across the water or if it is just a trick of the light, but either way he would much prefer they weren't over their heads. Unfortunately for them, they can’t press much closer to the mountains or else risk losing the river.

Another day passes under the golden trees.

"How much of the stories about this place do you believe?" Isena asks that night, watching the far shore. Isedd tilts his head to look for the stars beyond the trees.

“I don’t know,” he says. “There is something or someone with great power there, and I don’t think we would be welcomed if we tried to find them. Some of the stories seem… outlandish, even for elves and ancient magics. Many of those sort I don’t give much credence to.” He looks at Isena. “Does that help?”

“Not particularly,” she grumbles, rearranging herself and leaning her head on Isedd’s shoulder. “You can have the first watch.”

“How generous,” he mutters. He can feel her laugh.

The Celebrant has by now joined the Anduin, and though the most brilliant parts of the Dwimordene are behind them, there are still golden trees with massive white trunks here, interspersed with a number of more mundane ones. Isena points out a number of nets along the rocks near midmorning, and by noon they have stumbled into a Rohirric fisherman’s camp.

“Hello!” One of the fishermen calls out cheerfully. “You must be with Wynmar’s band- I told Dunstan they need not stop to check on us every time they pass, but I suppose it makes him feel better.” It hits Isedd with a sudden, unexpected weight that it has been more than a decade since he has spoken the language of Rohan for more than scattered conversations with Isena.

Isedd trades glances with Isena. He makes the slightest of gestures. _You can take this one_. There is the faintest suggestion of an eyeroll, but she bares an easy smile and offers a hand to the fisherman.

“A pleasure to meet you,” she says. “I’m Isena, and this is my brother Isedd.”

The man finally looks up from the net he is mending. “Ah! New faces. I am Felogild. You two are recently arrived in Stangard, I take it?”

“In a sense,” Isena says. Felogild’s brow furrows. “We were just passing this way on our trip south.”

“You came from the,” his voice drops. “The Dwimordene?” Almost as if on cue, bushes rustle nearby.

“We didn’t come any nearer the forest than the river,” Isena says with visible distaste. Isedd nearly laughs. “We crossed the mountains several days upriver. We are returning home after several years away.”

Felogild nods in understanding. “Then let me be the first to welcome you back. You may find less welcome here than you wish, though.” Isena cocks her head.

“What do you mean?”

Felogild speaks of the growing unrest and dangers plaguing the Rohirrim, but Isedd leaves the discussion to Isena. There is more movement in the bushes, and heavy breathing. Matwyn, the eagle that had followed him from Moria, lands on a branch nearby and looks at Isedd. _Shall I have a look_? Isedd nods and Matwyn begins to circle the clearing where Felogild and his friends have made their camp along Anduin.

“Isedd, what is it?” Isena’s voice breaks his attention from the surrounding undergrowth.

“I don’t-” A rending shriek tears from a bush and Matwyn dives. Felogild trips backwards and Isena lunges forward, slinging her shield into place in one smooth motion.

“Call off your-” the Rohirric, oddly accented, dissolves into unintelligible shouting. “Your bird!” Isedd glances at Felogild, but there is no recognition on the fisherman’s face.

“Are you going to come out and have a discussion, then?” Isedd calls into the undergrowth. He relaxes some, even if Isena doesn’t follow suit. “It really is unseemly to hide in bushes trying to frighten people.” Matwyn flaps out of the undergrowth and settles nearby, preening her feathers as if nothing at all unusual has happened. After her stumbles a disheveled elf, long hair pulled loose from its braid. The elf pulls herself upright and brushes her hair back.

“Very well. I had rather hoped to avoid this altogether, but you seem to have ruined that.” She glares at Matwyn, who continues her preening undisturbed. “You trespass on the realm of Lothlórien. You must leave.”

A beat of silence. “You could have just led with that, you know,” Isena says. The elf stares her down. 

“It has not proved the most effective in the past.” Isena rolls her eyes and Isedd laughs at the elf’s face. 

Felogild finally pulls himself together enough to speak. “Fear not. We have no wish to stray into the Dwimordene. We will leave as soon as we may.” The elf nods once, gathers what remains of her dignity, and leaves.

“I thought we were avoiding the forest,” Isena says conversationally after the elf has gone.

“As did I,” Isedd says. He looks at Felogild. “I thought we had crossed into Rohan by now.” The fisherman shrugs.

“Even if the bounds of Eorlsmead stretched this far, it is far too close to the Dwimordene for our comfort. If I had to guess, I would say it is too little like the true Dwimordene for _their_ comfort.”

“Why have you come so far from Stangard now?” Isena asks. Felogild’s face sours. “You and this other group you mentioned- Wynmar and Dunstan and their lot.”

“The short of it is that we have had to venture farther afield to feed ourselves recently.”

“And the long of it?”

Felogild sighs.

They spend the rest of the day at the camp. Other fishermen trickle in as afternoon tips towards evening and between them all Isedd and Isena gather a grim picture of the current state of Stangard. Isedd thinks that, for all his promises to the elf, Felogild truly can’t leave the edge of their forest without more food than they have gathered thus far.

“We can’t just leave them like this,” Isedd says to Isena that night, well away from the fire where the fishermen are clearing away their meal.

“Do you mean these fishermen who would never be able to resist a concerted effort to remove them or their starving town?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you might say that.” Isena elbows him. “You never can ignore a problem like that.”

“Oh please, like you can.”

“More easily than you at any rate.” Isena surveys the quiet forest. “I don’t disagree, but if we stop to put out every fire between here and the Fords, I’m afraid we’ll never make it.”

Isedd sighs. “It really does sound dire. You were right to want to come back.”

Isena laughs without humor. “I really wish I wasn’t.”

Matwyn’s warning echoes across the camp the next evening. The elf has returned, not bothering to hide herself now, and her displeasure is clear. Felogild and the rest of his party watch her nervously, but Isena steps forward before any of them.

“You are still here,” the elf says.

“And you are back,” Isena says back. She shrugs at the elf’s look. “Sorry, I thought we were stating facts.”

“You said you would leave.”

“We said we would leave as soon as we may,” Isena corrects. “We can hardly go without the rest of our friends, can we?”

The elf sighs. “Noriel’s hunters, I presume?” She waves off Isena’s attempted reply. “If I bring your hunters back to you, _then_ will you leave?” Isena glances back at Felogild, who nods rapidly, face pale in the light of the fire. “Good.” She stomps back into the darkness. Isedd doesn’t think he’s ever heard of elves and stomping going together before.

Isena turns to Felogild. “I would guess you have another day at the most to gather whatever food you can.” Felogild just looks at her. “What?”

The hunters are, in fact, an entirely separate expedition from Stangard. More impressive, however, was Isena’s near-belligerence with the elf.

“She’s just like that sometimes,” Isedd shrugs when Felogild brings it up later. Isena isn’t quite as collected to her brother’s eye, but there was still a large gap between the Dwimordene and a lone elf who has already been bested once by a bird.

A different elf appears near noon the next day, a number of hunters in tow. “You are Fimloth’s fishermen?” she asks brusquely. She eyes Matwyn cautiously. “Here are your hunters. Be on guard for orcs from the mountains, and be away from here by this time tomorrow.”

“Orcs?” There is muttering among the fishermen at the news.

“Some have made it down from the Misty Mountains. You would do well to leave as soon as you can.”

They spend the rest of the day preparing everything they can and to leave with the dawn. They keep a careful watch that night- the orcs have already claimed one of the hunters.

“Do you think Noriel would-” Wynmar starts at one point.

“No.” Half a dozen answers cut him off.

They break camp in the morning and see no sign of orcs as the trees give way to grassland. Isedd very much wishes that fact made him feel better. Matwyn vanishes for several hours halfway to Stangard and will give Isedd no more information than ‘eagle matters’ when he asks. He still isn’t sure why she has stayed with him after escaping Moria, but he is glad of it

“You should probably go see Stanric and Sithric,” Felogild tells them when they arrive in Stangard. “Sabert said nothing about you at the gates, but if Sithric finds you before you find him, it will be unpleasant for you.” He lowers his voice. “Whatever else you hear, I was glad for your company these last few days.”

“Well this promises to be interesting,” Isena mutters.

The outpost-city is built far more for function than form and most of it shows visible wear. The hall atop the hill is spacious and warm, though, and Stanric welcomes them with a smile. Sithric is his opposite in every respect. _This man is here as an advisor of the king_? Isedd thinks as Sithric condescends to Stanric. 

“I don’t like him,” Isena announces as soon as they have a moment to themselves.

“I don’t think he was overly fond of us either,” Isedd says dryly. Isena had not quite punched Sithric in the face for his comments, but it had been a very near thing.

They would have left that night if Isedd had not already insisted that they should help. Instead, they spend the next three days poking around and offering whatever help they can. They are, technically, guests here, not among those sent here to the very edge of Rohan at the king’s command, and so Sithric finds it more difficult than he no doubt would like to restrict their movements. After Isena’s fourth trip out of the city for armfuls of supplies, Uthrad, one of Sithric’s loyals, stops her outside the stables. Isedd misses the confrontation itself, but he hears about it later. It didn’t end pleasantly for Uthrad.

While Isena agitates Sithric's cronies, Isedd ends up in the tavern, of all places. One of the more recent not-quite-exiles that man Stangard catches Isedd's eye in the afternoon and spends the next several hours getting as much of Isedd and Isena's story as he can out of Isedd over a small meal. Horn reminds Isedd of Isena in some ways- she's certainly the only other one who has managed to make him talk so much in ages. 

"Have you gone to see the Cuthstan yet?" Horn asks. Isedd has not. He has seen hints of the massive statue from the watchtowers, but has been too preoccupied to even think about making a visit. Horn arranges for Isedd- and Isena, if she will come- to meet him near the gates that face the Cuthstan before dusk and they will make the short journey together. “You might see something to interest you there.”

And that is vague enough that curiosity alone would urge Isedd to go.

Isena looks critically around the stables when Isedd tells her about Horn’s offer. “I do seem to be picking up more attention than we would like,” she admits. “Tatwine!” she calls. A face appears from one of the stalls. “Can you manage a couple days without me?” 

"Tired of watching your back for Uthrad and his friends?"

Isena snorts indelicately. “If he asks, tell him I’m going to find a rock to match the hardness of his boss’s skull.” Tatwine laughs.

“Seriously though, what are you getting up to now?”

Isena just shrugs and waves Isedd out of the stable ahead of her.

The steep, rocky hill atop which sits the Stone of Friendship affords them an incredible view of Eorlsmead. The hills and more mundane forests to the north nearly hide the golden glint of the Dwimordene, and to the south across the Limlight the peaks of the High Moor rise into the Misty Mountains. A cold wind blows across the river and Isedd shivers.

“It is quite the sight,” Isena says, staring up at the stone face of Eorl the Young. “But it did not sound like we were making this trip for the view alone.”

“No,” Horn agrees, pacing a slow circle around the statue. “I spoke with your brother some earlier, but I suspect Sithric’s eyes and ears are following you rather closely in Stangard. I thought we might have more privacy here.”

Isedd waves Matwyn down from a sturdy tree nearby. “Will you watch for anyone approaching?” he asks quietly. Horn is busy telling Isena of his banishment from Edoras and pays no notice to the eagle. 

_What if I want to listen too_?

“If you truly care that much about the politics of the Rohirrim, I’ll tell you all about it later.”

Matwyn makes a disgruntled sound. _Fine_.

Away from Stangard, Horn has much to say of the state of Rohan- skirmishes at the Fords of the Isen, orcs down out of the mountains, Khundolar from the east. Some of this is news only in its intensity, but the fact that things have only gotten worse in the last decade speaks to trouble on a far larger scale. Horn's stories from Edoras in particular are grim. From his words, it seems Théoden hardly rules in Meduseld. Isedd does wonder, though, how much of Horn’s distaste for this Gríma is purely personal dislike of the man. 

“The last I knew, Prince Théodred planned to go to the Fords himself,” Horn says. “With Éomer away from Edoras more often than not, the Lady Éowyn is left to deal with the Wormtongue alone.”

_He may be a worm_ , Isedd thinks, _but he is a dangerous one from the sound of things_. 

"Why did you bring us out here to tell us this?" Isena asks as the last of the dusk fades. 

"All my words gained me in Edoras was exile. Those here who do agree with me can still do nothing. You two are, if nothing else, determined to cause a stir. I thought you should know what exactly you were walking into."

"And stir things in a way you think useful," Isena adds. Horn says nothing, but Isena seems satisfied with her answer.

They stay the night at the camp near the Cuthstan. Horn makes introductions and is soon after badgered into several songs by the others manning the camp tonight. For whatever trouble music had caused him before, it doesn’t seem to much dissuade him now. A man named Lanbert has the command here, but his men are restless and uneasy at the encroaching orcish forces. One of them, Odda, goes so far as to storm out of the camp when even the most cautious of his fellows dismiss his insistent warnings. Isedd follows.

“Do you wish to mock me as well?” Odda asks bitterly when Isedd comes up beside him.

“I’m here to help,” Isedd says.

He doesn’t know what Isena is up to back at the Cuthstan, but Matwyn doesn’t bring him any urgent news and so he stays and watches with Odda. These orcs call themselves Nink-hai- some splinter faction out of the mountains, Odda thinks- and they are far too well supplied.

“Never in all my years have I seen an orc-sword so fine,” Odda says darkly, turning a blade in the firelight.

Isedd sneaks closer to the orc camp the next day- perhaps closer than is wise. He didn’t say much to Odda or to Lanbert and the others at the Cuthstan, but he had gathered odds and ends he thought could be useful.

Matwyn chirps just before Isena appears beside him. Isena raises an eyebrow, crouched in the cover offered by the large spurs of rock here. Isedd raises a hollowed gourd and shakes it just hard enough to hear the liquid sloshing around inside.

“What…?” 

Isedd stands and chucks the gourd into the camp.

“That is _not_ a plan,” Isena hisses.

The thin-hulled gourd shatters on impact, spattering pine tar all across two neighboring tents. Some few voices stir, but no alarm goes up and Isedd grins. The sticky goo isn’t spread as widely as he had hoped, but he came prepared for this and tosses three more after the first. It draws more attention than just the one, but that doesn’t matter much either. This next one would wake them all anyway.

Isedd isn’t half the spearman his sister is, but he has his own use in a fight. He has learned some few words of power here and there across the years- some from Alse, some from travelers who were not quite all charlatans passing through Bree, some from old books in the Scholar’s Stair. One of them concerns fire- and the tar splashed across the camp is very, very flammable.

Odda creeps up behind them as the Nink-hai scream. He is noticeably more noticeable than Isena had been, but the orcs are plenty distracted. Isedd whispers another word and a gust of wind whips the flames towards a tent that Matwyn thinks houses spare weapons and armor.

“Now who might that be?” Isena murmurs, looking downhill.

“No normal orc would be abroad at noon,” Odda says.

"I'll go see." Isena slips away and a moment later Odda follows. Isedd keeps his attention on the chaos in the camp.

The Nink-hai are shrieking less, now, and they seem to have corralled the flames into one corner of the camp. What else… Isedd checks his pockets. He still has some of the powder Isena had talked off that performer for him a few years back. He never has found much use for it- he just thought it was interesting at the time. He takes a pinch of the fine grey-ish dust and dares to move right up to the wooden palisades that defend the camp. He tosses the dust straight up and urges the wind to carry it towards the fire.

The resulting soundless flash is blinding even with his eyes screwed shut and buried under an arm. The shouting from the camp is renewed and Isedd grins to himself as he sneaks back to the boulder.

Isena and Odda return soon after with a prisoner.

“This guy says they went and shipped Cirion’s hand off to Isengard,” Isena says conversationally. Odda scowls.

“We should take the uruk back to Stangard,” the old soldier grumbles. “Stanric should know what we have seen.” The uruk shifts at that and Isena claps him on the shoulder.

“Ah, come on, Dargum, don’t you want to brag about what you’ve been up to some more?” The uruk mutters something Isedd doesn’t understand and Isena shrugs. “Doesn’t much matter, I suppose. Let’s get going.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey look we finally made it to rohan
> 
> also love horn absolutely not Learning His Lesson in stangard at all
> 
> this is still 1-2 weeks before est shows up with nona and all the drama they cause in town


	6. don't worry, we plan things (isena)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> good morning i hate naming chapters lmao

“You look pleased with yourself,” Isena says, amused, as they make their way back to Stangard. Isedd shrugs.

“What can I say? It’s nice when plans work out.”

Isena eyes him. “There was a plan in there somewhere?” He might have thought to warn her first if there was. The flash of light had nearly cost them their prisoner.

“Of course there was,” he says.

“Uh huh.”

There is something wrong in Stangard. It’s nearly noon when they make it to the gates and there is a tension in the woman leading the guard here that was absent just days before. Odda hails her.

“We have a prisoner to bring before Stanric. And Sithric.” The woman shakes her head.

“Just Sithric, I’m afraid.”

Odda pauses. “What do you mean?”

“Stanric died this morning.”

Isena would hardly have called Stanric infirm, but she pays enough attention when Isedd talks to know a sudden death in a man of his age is not entirely unheard of. The timing is more suspicious, however. It takes only a glance at Isedd to know he feels the same.

They take Dargum to the mead hall anyway. There are too many eyes on them for Isena’s comfort, most of them only passingly familiar at best. Horn has made it back, and there is Tatwine with Sabert, both of them eyeing Uthrad, who looks almost smug. There’s Cynred, who keeps the lockhouse. He turns away when she catches his eye. Felogild and his fisherman pass by beyond those most interested in the spectacle of the uruk but they come no closer.

Gadda still stands guard at the hall, as he had when Isena and Isedd first arrived, but his jaw is clenched tight and he leads them before Sithric with hardly a word.

“What is this?” Sithric demands.

“We captured this uruk outside the camp of the orcs that call themselves the Nink-hai, too close to the Cuthstan,” Odda says. Whatever misgivings he may or may not have about Sithric, he makes his case valiantly.

Sithric laughs. “The White Wizard? An enemy? Oh, by Eorl how is this place still standing? If you are all as thick as Stanric, it is a wonder anything at all has ever gotten done here.” He waves a hand and turns away.

“Turn this sad thing loose. Even if it did know anything useful, it’s not worth the slop to feed it.” Dargum growls, but it’s lost beneath Odda’s protests. Sithric ignores Odda, barking for Gadda to enforce his word. Isena grits her teeth. They need to do something about this. Now.

She hands her spear to Isedd. The rest of her things she can bear the loss of. “Make sure he doesn’t get back to his masters,” she says under her breath. Isedd’s eyes narrow. “And sorry in advance.” Isedd opens his mouth, but she shoves him ungently after Odda and the uruk, who are being reluctantly herded out of the hall by Gadda.

“Sithric,” Isena calls as the doors swing wide behind her. “Could I have a word?” Sithric sighs and turns back to her.

“What is it?”

“I had a long talk with Stanric the other day, about duty and loyalty and all manner of exciting things.”

“I see.” Well, to his credit he is managing not to sound too bored.

“It really was a good discussion- what does duty entail and what does loyalty to king and country mean. You may have found it interesting, honestly.” The doors bang shut and she is alone with Sithric and the hall guards. Isena steps closer to the envoy of Edoras.

“You truly have been gone from Rohan so long you have forgotten what it means to be Rohirrim.” Sithric sneers. “I have no time for this. Your first duty is to the word of your king, which in this case I represent, and if you and your brother must relearn that, get out of Stangard and find someone who will-” 

Isena punches him.

“See, the thing is,” she says into the shocked silence before the guards think to move. “You’re not the king, and we can only take it on trust that you are acting as he would wish.” They grab her as Sithric straightens, hand to his face, and it takes all her willpower to leave her shield in its place and her hands at her sides.

“And I’m afraid to say, I have to question anyone who would ask the people beside him to starve.” Some of her true anger seeps through despite her best efforts, but she thinks of the forbiddances and the mandates he has instituted since his arrival, and of the confusion and frustration of Tatwine and the others as they watched their stores shrink farther and farther.

The guards in the hall get her to her knees and she is roughly divested of anything that could be used as a weapon. Sithric collects Cynred as he storms through the street to the lockhouse. Isena scans the area, but it seems Isedd is safely out of the path of Sithric’s ire. Hopefully she bought enough time with this stunt for him to stop Dargum from bringing everything he learned about Stangard to his allies.

Now she just has to figure out how to get herself out of this mess…

Sithric takes the time to personally see her into a cell. Cynred is the only one to accompany them, fumbling with the keys despite Sithric’s irritated urging for him to hurry. Cynred catches Isena’s eye and glances pointedly to the side, towards the neighboring cell.

“You should get that looked at,” Isena calls at Sithric as he leaves. “It could leave a nasty bruise.” The slamming of the door to the lockhouse is her only answer. The silence afterwards is deafening. Isena sighs and tries to settle herself. She looks around.

This cell is more spacious than the last she was in, and more comfortable to boot. The prison building is sturdy and well-built enough that it has been doubling as a secure warehouse for the dwindling rations. She can see her possessions, dumped without ceremony on a table near the hall that leads to the central room. _Huh_. She’d expected Sithric to at least go through them for her benefit, perhaps even his own amusement. She wonders if running all of Stangard himself is turning out to be more work than expected.

She can faintly hear movement from the other room, and occasionally footsteps above her. No more than two here. Other than that, she seems to be alone. 

Well now what?

She doubts Sithric will keep her here forever, or even for very long. There are simply too many other things in Stangard for him to attend to, even if he continues to do them poorly and with blatant intent to ruin the place. However much Isena may irritate him, she doesn’t think she has made herself important or annoying enough for him to bother with. She had assaulted the local authority while under a guest’s protection though, and that was a bad look on her. Good as punching the man had felt, and as necessary as she had deemed it, she still wishes it hadn’t come to that.

Still. She doesn’t intend to stay here. Even if she had no other reason, the longer she stays locked up the longer the lecture from Isedd will be later. Isena rolls her eyes in the shadows of the cell. He worries more than is strictly necessary sometimes. _But not without reason_. She thinks of the rest of their family.

Well, if she intends to leave here sooner rather than later, she supposes she should make herself unignorable. Importance seems out of reach from here, but annoyance? That she can do.

She knows a song, a children’s song, that her cousin had taught her once. It must have been written specifically to irritate; it can be looped indefinitely with only the smallest of adjustments and, in the right hands, can be continued for _hours_.

She tries not to sing for too long at a stretch to preserve her voice. Two hours later, an unseen voice to her right groans. “What is that sound?” Isena’s song cuts off.

“Stanric?”

“Yes. Am I… in the lockhouse?”

“It’s a step up from your previous rank of ‘dead’,” Isena says.

“What?”

“Sithric announced this morning that you had died suddenly in the night.”

“ _What_? What has happened?”

Isena shrugs. “I don’t know the details. I got back around noon and tossed in here not long after.”

“Why?”

“Ah. I sort of punched Sithric in the face in the middle of the mead hall.” She imagines Stanric’s silence is rather shocked. “At this point I’m just trying to make things more difficult for him- though I imagine word of your survival getting out would be far more effective.” Stanric still says nothing for a time, so Isena goes back to singing.

“That is going to grow old very fast,” Stanric says eventually.

“That is the idea,” Isena says. She finishes another round and stops for a break. “It’s not as bad if you join in, you know.”

He never does.

Isena does wonder, though, why Sithric kept Stanric alive. He had gone to all the trouble of making it seem as if the man was dead, but he had to know how much suspicion the timing of everything would raise in those who already distrusted him. From what Stanric tells her, Sithric’s people had managed to slip something into his food or drink as it was- why risk leaving him alive at all? A mistake, perhaps- a misjudged dosage of poison, or the wrong one altogether- but again, why not finish things?

Saving him for something more dramatic, perhaps? Or power alone may not be Sithric’s goal. From what the others had told her days earlier, he has been methodically knocking holes in Stangard’s defenders and defences since the day he arrived. Repeated turnovers in leadership would only further the destabilization. Too many questions lay that way for now, though, most of them beginning with _why_. Isena sighs and starts singing again.

Isedd comes for her three days later, with Tatwine and Gadda and a number of others who had left Stangard altogether in disgust with Sithric. Isena supposes it’s just as well- she was getting tired of the song anyway, and didn’t even seem to be annoying anyone but Stanric.

“Would you stop getting yourself thrown into cells?” Isedd demands as he unlocks hers.

“But I’m so very good at it,” she grins, voice raspy. Isedd shakes his head and gives her a once over. “I’m fine,” she says, heading for Stanric. “Pass me those keys?”

There is no shortage of people in Stangard willing to help them confront Sithric. Of those who will not help, few dare to hinder the march up the hill, and before the night is out it is done. Isena and Isedd make their farewells the next day. They are seen off cheerfully enough, but very few urge them to stay. _Maybe we made enough of a mess here_ , Isena thinks.

Isedd talks as they ride south, past the quiet ruins of Ost Celebrant and into the Wold- into Rohan proper. He hadn’t been able to follow the uruk out of Stangard, delayed far too long by Tatwine and Gadda and a number of others angry and wounded enough at the idea that Sithric had actually killed Stanric to abandon Stangard altogether. Matwyn had followed Dargum, at least, and had found Isedd and the others at an abandoned farmstead with word that the uruk had fallen prey to some oversized terror that had somehow crossed the Limlight out of Fangorn. That was disturbing enough, but Matwyn assured them that it was being attended to, and so they continued. 

“There’s still something bothering me about the tower, but Gadda insisted he would look into it after we got Stanric out.” Cynred had, it seems, been struck by his conscience for his part in Sithric’s deception and his cooperation had greatly sped things up.

They come to Langhold near dusk. The wood-walled city is smaller than Stangard, though it has far more by way of surrounding farmlands. There’s a familiarity to the feel of the place and Isena nearly expects to see faces long gone around the corner. They don't intend to stay- but then again, they had hardly planned to stay in Stangard either. 

"Stangard could have gone better," Isedd admits that night. Isena shrugs. 

"They didn't throw us out." They had been far too helpful to get that treatment. 

"Only because you had already charmed half of them."

Isena throws a piece of bread at him. "Says the one who talked six people into sneaking into a town three steps from being a fort." He tilts his head in concession.

Even if they had wanted to stay in Langhold, there is not much left of it the next day. 

Isena wakes to screams and fire outside the window of the small room she and Isedd have for the night. For half a minute she is fifteen again- but no. It’s not her home burning this time. Isedd already has his boots on and watches out the window while Isena settles spear and shield. There's no time to don Wíli's armored sleeve. 

Steel clashes near the western gate- and fainter voices come from the southern gate. Lady Cíllan is there, herding the non-fighters out of the city. _Whatever is happening, they find it a legitimate threat_. 

Isena can feel something watching her. She turns, and there are guards in Langhold’s colors keeping watch on her and Isedd until they turn away from Cíllan and towards the battle, but even when they move out of sight of those guards the feeling persists. Indeed, it grows stronger as they reach the edge of the fighting. Someone catches sight of them and charges with a shortsword in hand, but Isena catches it on her shield and Isedd knocks them back with his spear. They join the fighting.

Not all of those fighting to defend the city bear the golden bow on green- many of them seem to have rolled out of bed no earlier than Isena and Isedd had. Langhold is already burning and a harsh wind whips the smoke deeper into the city, choking anyone in its path. Isedd calls to her and she steps forward as he steps back. Isena doesn’t understand the words he whispers, but she can feel the gusts of wind that blow past her. A plume of smoke disturbed by the opposing winds _whooshes_ around her shield and into her face and she coughs as Isedd curses behind her, and it is only by sheer luck that the axe coming for her lodges itself solidly in the weathered wood of her shield and not her ribs.

The _watching_ feeling surges and she spins, knees bent, shield up, the axe still sticking out of it- but there’s nothing there. At least, nothing that would watch her. _What_ … But there’s no time to consider it. Isedd doesn’t try to combat the wind again, but he drops beside a man in green clutching at his chest and something paints them both in white light. Isedd pushes the man deeper into Langhold and he staggers away, but he’s alive. It draws attention though- it’s all Isena can do to keep them away from her brother until his spear stops shaking in his hand.

“Not yet,” she growls at him. Isedd shakes his head but says nothing.

 _Watching_. But still nothing. _Watching_! The thane is at the front of the fighting, shouting to his people and at a man Isena can only assume is the leader of this attack. _Watching you_! The axe still weighs down the shield and it is slowing her. 

Wingbeats. She looks up, but Matwyn is nowhere in sight- she hasn’t seen the eagle since they first came in sight of Langhold.

And whatever this is, it is much bigger than Matwyn could ever hope to be.

 _WATCHING YOU_! The force of it burns into the back of her neck and she falls to a knee as some massive winged thing crushes the upper floor of a barn and snarls into the melee. Isedd crouches beside her, saying something she can barely make out, his face painted with sweat. Isena is far from the only one on her knees, but she looks up when the thing speaks.

It’s been months since that night with the Blackwolds, but the Black Rider sounds nearly the same, impossibly clear against the rush of the flames, demanding surrender. Submission to Mordor. Thane Utred will have none of it, but even he has difficulty standing against the palpable force of the Nazgûl. The leader of the attack, Eastmund, laughs and strikes Utred down, but the way his hands and blade both shake belie his own fear. _Some allies these are_.

The defenders break. The Nazgûl laughs as those who can stagger away, fleeing for the other gate. Isedd pulls Isena to her feet and she stumbles backwards, only to lunge forward again to pull Isedd back. He’s reaching for one of the fallen, but there are so many of them and Eastmund’s men are beginning to shake off their fear. Isena knows she will never be able to keep them all away from Isedd for the time he would need and so, over his protests, she drags him after the retreating survivors of Langhold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> isena: isedd fire+bright light was Not a plan :/  
> also isena: *punches a guy in the face to go to jail* *sings the rohirric version of 'baby shark' for hours*


	7. the snows begin (isedd)

They flee to Harwick with the rest, as exhausted as the other soldiers. It’s a good thing Eastmund and his people were interested only in sacking the city- strung out along the plains, terrified and disoriented, there is no way they could have withstood a concerted attack. Most of them are on foot, too, their horses scattered in the fighting or else sent with Cíllan and the non-fighters. Isedd hasn’t seen Smelly or Leitha- or Matwyn, come to think of it. He is half asleep on his feet by the time they make it to relative shelter in the shadow of Harwick’s walls, though Isena is still wide-eyed and restless. He doesn’t have the presence of mind to offer more than a tired admonition to get some rest. They find an open space in the camp and Isena at least sits still enough to allow Isedd to fall asleep on her shoulder. When he wakes the next morning, he isn’t sure she slept at all.

“I rested,” she says defensively. Isedd looks pointedly at the dark bags under her eyes. Isena ignores him and goes in search of food.

Most of the day is lost to organizing the people of Langhold and counting their losses. Being all but unknown here, Isena and Isedd go largely unnoticed. Isedd occupies himself for a time tending to those wounded in the attack. Isena, still stubbornly not sleeping, he assumes has talked her way into the makeshift kitchen. 

They meet again in the early afternoon on the fringes of the camp, where Isena sits heavily on an empty crate and sighs.

“You know, you _could_ just go get some sleep,” Isedd says.

“Oh shut up,” Isena says without much heat. Isedd does, for awhile at least.

“What do we do from here?” he asks eventually. He doesn’t really expect a deep answer from Isena, mostly just thinking aloud. “We can’t just leave these people like this…”

“Why not?” Isena shrugs at Isedd’s look. “I just mean… there are soldiers enough who escaped, and together with those here in Harwick, it should be enough for their protection and care. What more will the two of us truly add?” Isedd thinks of the man he managed to save early in the night- and of the ones he couldn’t. “We came south to bring news, didn’t we?”

They did. To bring news and to find what remains of their family. And Isena does have a point in that two more spears here will amount to much less than they might elsewhere. But it still doesn’t sit right with Isedd, not entirely. Not everyone in Stangard had been disbelieving- or even all that surprised- by word of the White Wizard’s betrayal. It may not be such unknown news as his sister believes.

Isedd’s musings are interrupted by the arrival of four riders. One splits off and approaches the camp while the others discuss something with a guard at the gates. He introduces himself as Hutha of Firien and asks for the news. Isedd tells him what he knows, Isena adding her own commentary from time to time.

“Things are becoming complicated,” the young horseman mutters. His companions approach and Hutha quickly excuses himself. 

Isedd thinks little more of it until later in the afternoon. Matwyn has returned with Smelly and Leitha- whose company she complains about at length- and Isedd has finally convinced Isena to take a nap. He is examining Smelly and Leitha carefully when Hutha seeks him out again.

“Hail, friend. Do you have a moment?”

“What do you need?”

“The soldiers here speak well of you and your sister, even though you have only just arrived.”

They do? “That is kind of them.” He has no idea where this conversation is going.

Hutha nods agreeably. “It is. My companions and I spoke with several of the other people of Langhold here, but when we spoke earlier you seemed by far the most knowledgeable of the creature of Mordor that broke the defenses.” Oh. “I was hoping you might come with those of us going to hold council with Aldor Harding on several matters of importance in the Wold.” 

“Of course.” Even if he thinks Isena might be the better choice for this, he isn’t about to wake her. “When do we start?”

“As soon as everyone is ready.”

Oh. Great.

Isedd would be lying if he said he didn’t find this meeting even slightly intimidating. Hutha and his companions ride at the command of the Third Marshall, Harding’s command stretches from the Limlight to the Entwash, and Cíllan… they had watched her husband die and been able to do nothing. Even if she is gracious, she is perhaps the most intimidating of the lot. _And here I was just thinking that Isena might be overstating our importance in things_ , he thinks wryly. _Cíllan probably doesn't know us from most of her other soldiers._

Harding looks them all over, assembled in his hall. “Very well,” he says. “Let us start at the beginning.”

Captain Burnoth speaks first, of his orders from Éomer to cause chaos among the growing numbers of orcs and of the new course his small command had taken upon learning of the Khundolar threatening the northern borders. This much at least doesn’t seem to surprise Harding. Lady Cíllan speaks then of the repeated threats from Eastmund and her late husband’s attempts to banish them. If Harding has any judgement on this matter, he keeps them quiet. Cíllan has little to say of the attack on Langhold. She had been woken as abruptly as most others in the city and had barely had a moment with Utred before leading the evacuation.

"The first reports indicate that Langhold stands burnt but empty now," Cíllan concludes. "Eastmund seems to have desired nothing more than petty vengeance." Her voice is tight and controlled. "I saw no more of the battle with my own eyes."

And so the eyes in the hall turn to Isedd. He takes a breath and begins. 

His story at first is similar enough to Cíllan's- fire and confusion in the middle of the night. Cíllan's face is hard and the others' resigned as he describes the battle itself. Harding stops him when he comes to the arrival of the Nazgûl. 

"Describe this creature for me, in detail." The next hour is spent in deep discussion of the Ringwraiths and everything they know about them. Legends, old stories, the more terrifying recent experiences, whatever Isedd has learned from the Dúnedain. It doesn't amount to much, all told, but it is enough to put a healthy fear in all of them. There has been more than one report of the wraiths' terrible mounts, including one from Hutha's cousin, stationed on the far bank of the Anduin near Stangard. 

"You say you learned much of this from friends in the north?" Harding says, watching Isedd closely. 

"I did," Isedd says. He thinks of the instinctive distrust Breelanders hold for the Rangers- that he had learned to hold, too, if he is being honest- and speaks further. He thinks of Toradan, facing down his friend in a cave and almost dying for it and, with what should have been his dying breaths, begging two practical strangers to save his surviving friends. He thinks of Mundol, who did the same, and of Reniolind, who trusted them perhaps too eagerly when they were less unfriendly than most after that night. Isedd doesn't say all- or even most- of this to Harding, though. "The Rangers have been true friends to me and my sister."

Harding holds his peace for a time. "I would take care who you advertise this friendship to," he says seriously. "Particularly in Edoras. We received a command just this week to detain any of your northern woodsmen we find."

"What?" Isedd blurts. "Why?"

"You tell me," Harding says. He pins Isedd with a look, and Isedd has the sudden sensation of swimming in politics. _What I say next may have consequences_ , he thinks, and wishes he had asked Horn more about the situation in Edoras. Then again, he isn't sure how much good it would do him- nor would it change what he came here for. 

"I can't say what the Rangers might have done to draw the ire of the Golden Hall," he says. "All I know is what they have done back north."

"Hmm." Harding leans back from the table. "You seem to have spent quite some time in the north."

"My sister and I were born in the Westfold, but we have lived the last twelve years in Bree."

"And why have you come back now?"

 _Here we go_ … "Saruman the White is a traitor and has been actively working against Rohan for some time now."

Half the room erupts in protests- Lady Cíllan, Hutha and one of his friends, one of Harding's captains. The rest look unsurprised. Harding holds a hand up for silence. 

"And where did you learn this?" _More from the Rangers_? is the real question there, Isedd thinks.

"We found evidence of it in Stangard." In the camps near the Cuthstan and in the tower that watches over Eorlsmead, however briefly he had managed to look into it. _Though, considering Hutha’s news, perhaps it was more than that, or something else altogether_ …

Someone clears their throat. Isedd shakes himself and finishes.

The news the Riders Four bring changes nothing for Harding, not really. For that matter, neither does Isedd and Isena’s news- raids have been becoming more frequent and more brazen for years now, and some had already suspected the White Wizard. The Wold will soon come under attack, and unless Harding can muster a greater force here, they will be overrun. Burnoth and his men already intend to take word to the thanes of the Eastemnet and to ask aid of them, but Rohan is a very large place and there are, after all, only the four of them.

“What of Isedd and his sister?” Cíllan says. “They have been of service to my people and, if I am not mistaken, are ready to travel.”

“We have our own task,” Isedd objects.

“So you’ve said. Trade then with Captain Burnoth here- he and his men can take news of Saruman with them and you and your sister can take word of the Khundolar at the Undeeps.” Thus doubling the reach of both messages. Isedd considers, then nods.

Harding calls for maps to be brought. “That settles that much, then. Burnoth, where did you intend to ride after Harwick?”

“South,” Burnoth says, tracing a route out. “Start with Cliving and follow the Entwash until we reach Snowbourn.” Harding nods.

“Isedd, you and your sister will start north. Speak to Gárwig in Forlaw, convince him to send an éored at least to Harwick and to keep a watch on Eorlsmead.” The Aldor of the Eastemnet straightens. “Go and make what preparations you must. I will have a message for Gárwig for you by morning. Burnoth, when do you plan to set out?”

“As soon as our horses have rested.” 

“I will start on a letter for Athelward as soon as we are finished here.”

Thoroughly dismissed, Isedd is herded out of the hall behind the Riders Four. “Cíllan, I’m sorry,” Harding says as the doors swing shut. “Utred was a good man…”

“Well, that went better than I feared it would,” Burnoth says to the others.

“We’ll see if we have the same luck in Cliving,” one of them mutters.

“Ah, Ulf, we’ll never get anywhere with that attitude…” 

They vanish into the city, leaving Isedd alone. He goes to find Isena.

Isena is not terribly impressed with their new mission- though this could largely be on account of her just waking up. Once she rubs the sleep from her eyes she listens to Isedd’s account of the council.

“Not a direction I was expecting,” she says around a yawn. “But we can work with this. Too bad most of our stuff is back in Langhold- assuming it survived the fire.”

They are summoned to Harding’s hall before dawn the next morning. Harding hands Isedd a sealed letter and sends them off in the grey with a small bundle of supplies and solemn well-wishes.

They pass the ruin of Langhold as they ride, charred and empty. _What was the point of it_? Isedd wonders. They go no closer.

The wind blows colder as they climb the switchback to the flatlands of the High Moor and Isedd pulls his cloak tighter. They push for Forlaw along a road growing steadily more snow-choked as they go. _Well, we did decide to make this trip on the tail end of winter_ , Isedd supposes. Snow is to be expected.

They find the hillside below Forlaw littered with fresh corpses. Most of them are orcish, but some are clearly the defenders of the city, and a handful Isedd figures must be trolls.

"Is it just us, or is this kind of trouble really so common these days?" Isena murmurs as they climb the hill. 

"I can't say I care for either of those options," Isedd says. Isena laughs.

They approach the gates on foot and are stopped by a large man with a vibrant red beard. “This is a strange time for travelers.” His voice is friendly but his eyes are hard and dried blood crusts his armor. “What is your business here?”

Isena smiles. “We’re messengers. We have a message from Aldor Harding for Reeve Gárwig, though,” she glances back down the road. “It seems you might have more pressing concerns.” The man snorts.

“So we might. A message from Harding, eh?” He cups his hands to his mouth. “Edsig!” he bellows. “These two say they have a message for your father.” Edsig waves them over and soon after passes them on to another relation of his, a young man by the name of Alfreth who chats with Isena the whole way up to the narrow bridge that connects the town of Forlaw with the reeve’s hall. Isedd watches the town as they walk. Despite the bodies outside, the city itself looks largely unharmed. Most of the people seem too busy to spare more than a glance for Isedd and Isena. 

Alfreth shows them into the warm interior of Lornsettle and loiters near the door. Gárwig receives them, curt but not unfriendly. Isena hands him the letter Harding had sent with them. 

"Is Harding sending us help?" Gárwig says half to himself as he reads. Isedd and Isena trade glances. 

"Asking for yours, actually," Isena says. Gárwig grunts.

“He may find we have little to give.” There’s silence as the reeve finishes the letter.

“We saw signs of a fight outside the walls,” Isena says. 

“Orcs,” Gárwig agrees sourly. “More of Saruman’s hordes, no doubt.” He folds the letter and sighs. “We know well enough of the White Wizard’s treachery here. The Khundolar are news, but there is close to nothing we can do, whatever Harding might wish. We cannot leave our own homes undefended and, as you have seen, we don’t lack for foes from which to defend.” He stands and waves Alfreth forward. “You have done well enough, though. You are competent messengers, but I cannot send a full éored to the Wold as Harding requests. I hope you have better luck with the rest of your journey.”

Thoroughly dismissed once again, Isedd turns to follow Alfreth back outside. Isena crosses her arms and sets her feet. “Save your breath,” Gárwig says. “I must look to my own people first. I will do what I can afterwards.” Alfreth firmly steers them both out of the hall.

Isena shivers as Alfreth leads them to a nearby tavern for a meal. “Is it always this cold up here?”

“The cold hangs on late some years,” Alfreth says. “But this is a little unusual.” Isena waves at a table in invitation and Alfreth shrugs and sits. Isedd leaves his sister to her interrogation and finds food for the three of them. “Most everyone else thinks this is just winter’s last gasp, and those that don’t are too busy with the orcs to give the weather much mind,” Alfreth is saying as Isedd returns. “It’s been a week since I heard anything from my friend Ránmald in Byre Tor, but her last letter mentioned that every pond smaller than the Isingmere between the city and the Balewood had frozen solid.” He shrugs again, seeming suddenly self-conscious. “I don’t know. None of my uncles seem worried about it, and if my grandfather is he hasn’t said anything.”

“The orc attacks do seem to be holding everyone’s attention,” Isena says thoughtfully. Isedd glances at her.

“You think it’s related to everything else?”

“The timing is certainly coincidental,” she says.

“Isengard from the west and Mordor from the east.” Isedd makes a face. “It’s really not an encouraging picture.” Add to that the trouble in the north little more than two months ago, and you did have to wonder if something much worse was brewing. 

They bid Alfreth farewell and ride for the south-eastern slopes that lead down into the Entwash Vale, hoping they will have better luck in Eaworth or Thornhope.

They are sadly disappointed.

Matwyn dives nearly into the ground in front of Smelly’s hooves and he rears. Matwyn swoops back up to land in front of Isedd, ignoring Smelly’s irritated shake. _Orcs at the pass. You’ll never make it down to the valley_.

Isedd curses. “How many are we looking at?”

_More than the two of you can fight on your own._

“Ah, you underestimate us,” Isena says when Isedd repeats the news for her. “And besides, we can always go around them.” Matwyn stares flatly at Isena. Isena looks at Isedd. “She didn’t appreciate that, did she?”

 _I did not_.

“She did not.” Isena shrugs.

“Sorry, Matwyn.”

They do try to get closer, despite Matwyn’s confident assertions. The single most passable route to the Entwash Vale is held by a large force of orcs, supported by their smaller kin on wargs. The scouts make regular sweeps that nearly uncover them twice before they admit defeat. They retreat to the small village of Dunfast and trade news with the people there. They have heard nothing from Forlaw in several weeks now, and every other messenger to or from Byre Tor seems to go missing.

“This is a problem,” Isedd mutters to Isena. She snorts.

“I’d say it’s three or four problems on each other’s shoulders at least,” she says. “I assume we’re stopping here then?”

Isedd ducks his head. “Well, we’re not exactly getting out anytime soon, are we?” Isena laughs and nudges him.

Alfreth’s face says ‘wait, I thought you left’ well before his words do, and he drags them off to the first man they had met here, who Isedd thinks is very appropriately named Red-beard. Thrymm takes the news of the blocked pass grimly and sends riders to scout the other passes. Isena offers their spears.

“The orcs are becoming a greater threat with every passing day,” Thrymm says, extending his hand. “We will take your aid gladly.”

They ride with Thrymm to Scylfig, where he establishes a nearby camp from which to watch the land and prepare whatever force he can muster. Isedd and Isena are quickly set to messenger duty, riding most often between Thrymm and the local thane’s daughter. Cyneberg gives them detailed reports on happenings in the rest of Wildermore- or at least, as detailed as they can be, given the recent difficulties in getting messengers through.

It grows colder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~isedd~~ me: wait how did we end up in the middle of rohan politics? (you decided the big mission was _tell all these political figures about saruman, who also keeps messing with rohan politics_ that's how)


	8. giant problems (isena)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> assassin's creed is distracting lmao. hope the next few chapters aren't too assassin-flavored because of it

Cyneberg- and Thrymm, one of the few times he follows Isena and Isedd into Scylfig- agree that the silence is more than enough cause for worry. They send Isena and Isedd north along the Isingmere, by now frozen over nearly ten feet out from shore in search of news.

Byre Tor is cold and many of the people are scared and unfriendly. Thane Aldstan speaks with them of the state of the wilds around the city and of the rumors that have spread from the western slopes: a shadow of cold, a fell power, a massive creature whose head reaches the highest peaks, echoing laughter on the winds. Byre Tor itself is intact, but here even more than on the other side of the lake it’s clear that there is something unusual about the weather. It’s too cold, the snows too heavy, and all of it too late in the season, even so close to the mountains. Much of the early spring greenery is brown from frost or else buried under feet of heavy snow.

“We have enough stores within our walls to keep our own animals for a time yet, but the wild creatures will not be so fortunate,” Aldstan says, worried. Byre Tor is at least partly reliant on the wild game brought in by their hunters. Their death could easily mean the city’s.

“Have you considered evacuation?” Isena asks. Cyneberg and Thrymm have both toyed with the idea, but neither of them were confident that Forlaw and Scylfig would be able to support refugees from every corner of Wildermore. Isena thinks that by the time they reach the point of evacuation, the population they will be obliged to worry about will be significantly smaller. There’s enough to worry about as is, though, so she hasn’t mentioned that particular theory.

“It would be no small task to convince the people of Byre Tor to abandon their homes,” Aldstan says evenly. _Himself included, then_. Isena inclines her head.

“Understandably so. We haven’t come to ask you to do so, anyway. It’s just something to think about.”

The winds pick up as they put Byre Tor behind them, snow whipping up into their faces despite hoods pulled close and scarves all but covering their faces. Matwyn is hunched in front of Isedd on Smelly’s saddle, sheltered as much as can be by his cloak. Isena and Leitha lead, pushing through the storm by sheer will.

They find a respite along a track winding between old boulders, but when they try to continue past the brief shelter, the wind screams up the slope and nearly knocks Isena from the saddle. Leitha balks and backs behind the rocks again, nearly flattening Smelly in the process.

“There’s no way we make it back in this!” Isedd shouts over the storm.

"Do you see anywhere we can- _plegh_!” Something slams into Isena’s face and she spits mouthfuls of snow. “ _Isedd is this really the time-_ ”

“Behind you!”

They aren’t alone in this sheltered cleft. Isena can’t make out anything of the approaching figures but vaguely armoured silhouettes. One of them raises an arm and throws something. Isena is still squinting into the snow when it hits her square in the face again. Not from Isedd, then. She can hear her brother cursing as she clears her eyes again. 

Isena barely keeps her seat as their enemies charge her and Isedd. Leitha rears and takes the first one in the chest while Isena stabs forward with her spear, but Leitha stumbles in the deep snow when she comes back down. _This won’t work_. Isena swings out of the saddle.

She can recognize these as orcs, closer up, big ones like Dargum back in Stangard had been. It’s impossible to say if they bear the White Hand or if it’s just the snow, but Isena would be willing to put money on it.

For ten long minutes they struggle in the knee-deep snow, until at last Isedd whistles sharply for Leitha to follow him. Isena retreats after them on foot, following Isedd's voice in between trying not to trip over the rocky hillside beneath the snow. It might be a comical scene to see, all of them moving half as fast at least as they otherwise might. It's rather less so to experience, but that's usually how such things go.

"Isena, down!"

She hits the snow as a rush of hot air passes overhead. The uruk closest behind her screams and the others fall back warily. Isena takes the opening to make it to Isedd’s side, backed into an opening in the rocks where the howling of the storm dies away. Smelly and Leitha stamp restlessly behind him and Matwyn is still watching from Smelly’s saddle.

The earth shakes. The uruks freeze and look up. Isena follows their eyes but finds nothing. The earth shakes again. Again. It’s almost like-

“Footsteps,” Isedd breathes.

“ _Giant_ footsteps. By Eorl, how big must it be to make that much noise?” Isedd only shakes his head.

The footsteps stop. The uruks are deathly silent, only one of them keeping a watch on Isena and Isedd. The wind of the snowstorm still steals most sound, but above it all a deep voice rumbles through the mountains.

“South,” it says. Isena can’t put an emotion to it, but the uruks turn away from them immediately and are swallowed by the blowing snow. The footsteps resume, moving not south but east, and eventually they fade away. So too does the storm.

Isena and Isedd huddle in their shelter for nearly two hours before they dare try to make it the rest of the way to Scylfig. 

"You two look like you saw a ghost," Cyneberg says when they return to the hall of Scylfig. 

"A ghost might have been preferable," Isedd mutters, moving closer to one of the braziers. 

"We never saw it," Isena says. She shakes her head. "We made it to Byre Tor. They're cold, and before much longer they'll be hungry, too, but the place is still standing. We were the only ones who have made it through in nearly two weeks. There have been rumors of some huge thing around town, but no one has seen it up close. I think we might have come close, though.” She and Isedd tell Cyneberg in detail of the storm, the fight, the voice. The uruks had been far more afraid of disobeying it than finishing Isena and Isedd- and they could have, without too much trouble. Cyneberg stares into the fire, face troubled.

“Thrymm needs to know about this creature, whatever it is, and so does Gárwig.” She sighs. “It was coming south?”

“It said ‘south’,” Isedd says. “But it wasn’t moving this way.”

“There isn’t much south of that position but Scylfig,” Cyneberg says. “Forlaw maybe, but they are better defended than anywhere else nearby.” She waves an attendant over. “Get something warm in you and we’ll go see Thrymm. I have a bad feeling about this.”

Thrymm’s assessment of the situation is little different from Cyneberg’s, but he has the addition of several reports of orcs moving in numbers through the Writhendowns. Some of the outlying farms in the Fallows have been burned, too, and not everyone from the surviving ones have fled. More immediately, Scylfig is the most likely target of an attack Thrymm is sure is coming.

"I will tell my father and prepare Scylfig," Cyneberg says. "We'll need the two of you to ride to Forlaw. Tell the Reeve what you saw at Byre Tor and what Thrymm’s scouts have reported.”

“See if any of my cousins can be spared,” Thrymm adds. “We may need them.” Wind gusts through the camp. “You may want to hurry.” He looks at them then, and gives them a broad smile. “Ah, where would we be without message-riders as capable as you two.”

Isedd laughs it off. “We are, of course, renowned for our skill in riding from here over to there.” Isena thinks of how few messengers have survived their journeys in the last month and wonders if maybe they have a right to some pride in this.

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Cyneberg says with a smile. “With solid communication, we may survive this yet.” She gives Thrymm a parting kiss and leads the way out of his camp, Thrymm calling his captains together behind them.

Cyneberg doesn’t ride with them for long, splitting off to return to her home. She waves and they turn Smelly and Leitha for Forlaw. 

Gárwig is silent as they tell their story for the third time. “An attack on Scylfig is imminent, and a much larger- in several ways- problem stalks the peaks near Byre Tor.” He nods grimly. “Very well. Is there anything else?”

“Thrymm asked for his cousins, if any of them were able,” Isena says. She catches Isedd hiding a yawn and fights not to do the same.

“The twins are seeing to the situation in the Fallows, but Gársig and his sons will go,” Gárwig says. “They will be on the road as soon as I speak with them.” He looks at them closely. “Thrymm and Cyneberg have been running you two hard, haven’t they?” He waves off their protests. “They forget that not everyone is as sturdy as they are. You should get some rest.”

“We’re good for one more ride,” Isena says with a lopsided smile. “We’ll go with Gársig back to Scylfig.” Isedd nods beside her. Gárwig sighs.

“You gain nothing from pushing until you collapse, you know.” Isena nods pleasantly.

They do manage to catch a few hours of sleep before Gársig and his sons are ready to set out, tucked into a warm corner of Lornsettle. Alfreth shakes them awake with a laugh.

“I should have just let you guys sleep through it and gone myself,” he says, grinning. Isena yawns and stretches, elbowing Isedd.

“Ah, you won’t be missing anything much,” she says.

Alfreth scoffs. “And that’s why you’re running off instead of getting some sleep in a proper bed, I’m sure.” Isena laughs and shoos him away. He doesn’t go far. “I do wish I was going though- it sounds like there’s going to be a fight, and my cousins are going to get to see it all.” He makes an offended sound. “I’ve got two years on Grimgar, and four on Humbald.” Isena shakes her head and stands.

“And that puts you at all of…?”

“Twenty.”

Smelly and Leitha are not best pleased to leave the warm stables again, but they keep pace with Gársig and his sons the whole way to Scylfig.

They hear orc-horns blowing in the distance as they approach and Isena spares a moment to be very tired of walking into a fight for a place that should have been a haven. Or maybe she's just tired.

The wind carries the sound of battle out of Scylfig. The gates have been forced open and Gársig leads them charging into the rear of the attackers. They cut their way to the center of Scylfig, where Thrymm and Cyneberg are ordering the defense. Thrymm laughs when he sees them.

“That was some entrance, Gársig!”

The wind gusts strong enough to steal Gársig’s reply, for all he’s standing only feet from Isena. She shivers.

“-with Cynegar up at the mead hall,” Thrymm is saying when the gust dies. Isedd has turned back to face the gate. Isena follows his gaze but sees nothing but smoke and swirling snow.

"What is it?" Cyneberg asks, watching them. Isena looks to Isedd, but he just shrugs and turns away. The wind gusts again.

"Well, we nearly have the last of the orcs swept up," Thrymm shrugs. "We should get to the last of them."

_Thud_.

A heartbeat of silence strikes Scylfig.

_Thud_.

Isedd curses under his breath. Isena echoes him at greater volume. 

"What is it?" Cyneberg repeats, more insistent now.

"Whatever that thing near Byre Tor was, it's here now." And they know absolutely nothing more about it.

Cyneberg nods once. "Grimgar, Humbald, go to the mead hall and tell my father what's happening. Isena, Isedd, watch the doors." She and Gársig take up position to either side of Thrymm, weapons at the ready. Grimgar and Humbald spend half a minute grumbling before doing as Cyneberg says, disappearing into the hall as Isena and Isedd take up position outside. Cynegar emerges soon after, waving the irritated Grimgar and Humbald back when they try to follow him too closely.

“Protect the hall,” he says sharply. He joins his daughter further down the road.

The thuds, more and more like footsteps now, grow louder. The wind whips blinding snow down onto Scylfig. Cries go up from nearer the gate as great spears of ice burst from the ground. A massive shadow looms above. It moves, vague in the snow-clouds, and with a thunderous crash the gates are splintered entirely, lobbed in pieces into the town. More crashes follow, and screams. There’s a sound like a deep breath, and then more of the spikes explode from the frozen earth. Those Isena can see are at least as tall as she, and the shadows of those nearer the creature promise to be at least twice that.

“What is that thing,” Humbald breathes beside her.

“I am Núrzum!” it bellows into the air. Humbald shrinks closer to Isena, then pushes himself upright as if it hadn’t happened. It enters the walls and stops before Thrymm and the others, standing defiant before it. “Who are you?”

They give their names, of course, and challenge too. Núrzum only laughs, the sound echoing like cracking ice. “Bold you are to stand before me, lordlings. Come then!”

They are only four against a giant. Isena and Isedd might hope to reach his knees if they stacked themselves on end. Isedd whispers something, a light growing in his hands, but Isena jostles his shoulder until he drops it.

“We can’t draw attention to the hall,” she hisses when he glares at her. The greatest part of those who cannot fight shelter within. Isedd turns away, shoulders tense, but he doesn’t try to act against the giant again. Grimgar and Humbald, too, want some part of this, and before Isena can stop them they have gone, circling around to come at the fight from the lower town. Isedd looks to her and raises an eyebrow.

“What good will the two of us here do if it comes this way?”

Isena sighs and follows Isedd and Gársig’s sons. Ice erupts in front of them, nearly impaling Humbald, and moments later Gársig cries out in pain and Cyneberg in rage. By the time Isena and the others finally find a way around the jagged ice, only Thrymm and Cyneberg are still standing. Núrzum seems bent on Thrymm, raising his giant foot again and again. He is slow in his immensity, though, and Thrymm has thus far been both lucky and fast. 

Núrzum bellows in rage and the winds rise around him. Ice explodes from the ground and they are all thrown down. Isena lands not far from Cyneberg and Thrymm and they rise slowly, breathing in great pants. Thrymm meets Isena's eyes. 

"Stay close to her," he says, glancing towards Cyneberg. 

"What are you doing?" Isena asks. Cyneberg's eyes narrow. 

"We can't let this continue. Scylfig will be destroyed before we ever manage to bring him down. You know I'm right," he says before Cyneberg can protest. 

"Not you too," she says, voice barely more than a whisper. She does not look towards where her father lies still. "Thrymm, please-"

"I just need an opening and then I can lead him away," Thrymm says. He pulls Cyneberg into a brief kiss and lets their foreheads rest against each other. "I must do this. You know that. I'm sorry, my love."

Isena clears her throat. "You need an opening, you said?" Thrymm nods. "Alright. I can do that." She grips her spear and runs at Núrzum shouting. The giant turns and swings a foot almost lazily her direction. She throws herself forward and hits the ground rolling. By the time she's back on her feet, Thrymm sits astride his horse in the middle of the road leading out of Scylfig. He raises his horn to his lips and blows.

Núrzum turns immediately, and with a speed that has been entirely absent until now. Thrymm's eyes widen and he wastes no time in spurring Godsefa out the gates. Núrzum chases him, roaring, and less than two minutes later they hear a horn blast, abruptly cut off, and Núrzum laughing. He does not return to Scylfig. 

The silence that follows is deafening. Matwyn wings her way back to the town and alights beside Isedd, who kneels between Cynegar and Gársig, face downcast. Gársig's sons are there too, bloodied from the fight and weeping. Cyneberg is motionless by the ice, gazing after Thrymm. 

The battle rush leaves Isena then, heavy tiredness and a multitude of pains following. There is work to do yet, though, and none of the others look to be able or willing to handle it. She lays a hand on Cyneberg's shoulder and the other woman sighs deeply before turning away from the gates. Her face crumples when she sees her father. Isedd's face pinches and he moves aside for Cyneberg. Isena pulls him into a hug, brief but tight, and he gives her a small smile in thanks.

“I’m alright,” he murmurs. He looks back at Cynegar and Gársig. Isena pulls him away.

“Come on, we need to get rid of some of this ice.”

Between fire from Isedd’s hands and stubborn force from Isena’s, they manage to make a dent in the ice spikes that now litter Scylfig. The last of the orcs ran off in the giant’s wake, and now there is only cooling bodies and colder air. It’s some time before Cyneberg pulls herself to her feet. Isena hears her speaking gently with Humbald and Grimgar and squeezes her shoulder in passing.

It’s hours before everyone is accounted for. Much of the ice still stands, but Isedd had been forced to retreat to the mead hall before he passed out where he stood. Isena isn’t doing much better, if she is being honest, and night is falling. Humbald comes to collect her eventually, saying Cyneberg wants her back in the hall. 

“Thank you for your help today,” Cyneberg says quietly. “My people needed a level head and I-” she takes an unsteady breath and looks towards her father’s empty seat. It’s her seat, now. Cyneberg deserves some sort of comfort, but here in the warmth of the hall Isena is fading fast and she can’t hide her yawn. Cyneberg gives her a small smile. Isena pats her arm.

“You’ll get through this. Promise.” Isena wanders around the hall three times before she finds Isedd, curled up dead asleep on the upper level. She lays down beside him and is unconscious in seconds.


	9. disturbance at the gates (isedd)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have been getting distracted every time i tried to sit down to write this chapter all month :/ if it feels like i wrote maybe two paragraphs at a time the whole way through, that is why lol

Scylfig is still a mess the next day, but after a full night of sleep Isedd feels ready to take it on. He recruits Humbald and Grimgar to help him break the largest of the remaining ice spires, hoping to keep them occupied, and by noon they and the various helpers that drift in and out have the worst of it cleared away. Cyneberg’s scouts return in the afternoon- the only sign of Núrzum’s passing to be found was fresh snowfall, heavy enough to fill in even tracks left by something as massive as the giant. There’s no sign of Thrymm either, beyond his fallen horn. Isedd watches Cyneberg’s face, but she keeps her expression smooth while her people watch her. It’s only later, making plans to take her father and Gársig to Forlaw for burial, that she lets her head hang low. 

Cyneberg leaves the management of Scylfig to one of her councilors and leads the somber ride to Forlaw. Cyneberg says little, so Isedd rides beside her in silence while Isena takes it upon herself to talk with Humbald and Grimgar. Eventually she even gets some (fairly half-hearted) laughter out of them.

The hush that falls over Forlaw at the rumor of Thrymm's death is heavier than the snowfall. Isedd and Isena sit with Humbald and Grimgar in Lornsettle while Cyneberg speaks with Gárwig and they await the rest of their family.

“You’ve been in fights like that before, haven’t you Isena?” Humbald says quietly.

“Not quite like that,” Isena says with a dark laugh. “But yes, Isedd and I have seen our fair share of fights.” Isedd only half-listens, watching Cyneberg and thinking. There was no sign of Thrymm for good or ill, but the first rule of any good story is that death is not assured until you see a body. Depending on the story, not even then. Isedd frowns to himself. One of the first rules anyway. Still, it is one thing to hope that someone you love has pulled off a miraculous escape somehow and quite another to believe it… or to have it be true.

Isena’s tone changes, snapping Isedd from his musings. “There is no shame in surviving,” she spits. The stifling silence in the hall cares nothing for her fury, though a number of people turn her way. Grimgar and Humbald lean away from her, eyes startled wide. “A good death should be celebrated, yes, but you’re no less for daring to live.”

 _Ah_. Isedd lets his head fall back against a pillar and closes his eyes. She had spent years making him believe that, furious and desperate in the room they had shared in Alse’s home then, but sometimes he still thinks about it. He had been no older than Grimgar the night of the raid, and he thinks some days he should have stayed and fought. He feels eyes on him and meets Isena’s glare with a soft smile.

Edsig and Gárferth return to Forlaw as the rest of the reeve’s family straggles into Lornsettle, grim with their own news well before they hear of their youngest brother’s fate. The farms are burning, and though they have rescued who they can, many were not fortunate enough to escape. 

Isedd retreats to the edge of the hall. He would leave altogether, but Isena crosses her arms and leans against a wall, watching Humbald and Grimgar embrace their mother and younger brother. Her face is carefully blank, but Isedd can practically feel the simmering anger rolling off her. 

“If I ever find the person responsible for that thinking, I swear by the Hammerhand I will end them,” she says under her breath to Isedd. He snorts.

“You may be a few years late on that one.” It’s well and truly woven into the fabric of the Rohirrim by now. This doesn’t calm Isena any.

“It does the dead no good,” she growls. “All it does is shame the living- and the dead are no less dead.”

“I know,” Isedd says quietly. This is old pain- and an old rant.

“I don’t understand…” she shakes her head and falls silent.

“I know, Isena.” Isedd bumps their shoulders together. _You won’t lose me to that, little sister. Never fear_.

The aching peace of Lornsettle is disrupted by an out-of-breath guard from the eastern gate. Orcs again.

“Where did they come from?” Edsig demands, already halfway to the doors. “Everything was clear not two hours ago.” The guard stammers out an explanation, but Edsig is already gone, Gárferth on his heels. Isedd and Isena follow just steps behind, and in twos and threes the entire hall empties.

Wind shrieks across the bridge into town and Matwyn lands hard in front of Isedd. _The creature has returned_! Isedd nods and scoops the eagle up, bundling her close to protect her from the wind as he ducks low and charges after Isena and the twins. 

“Wait it out here.” Isedd deposits Matwyn on a sheltered porch and ignores her indignant squawk.

The orcs are all slain when they arrive. There were barely two dozen of them- they can’t have expected to be more than an annoyance to Forlaw. The frozen air rasps in Isedd’s throat and tells him even before he can make out the footfalls that Núrzum has indeed come again. 

“What is this?” Isedd wonders aloud. “A trap?”

“A diversion maybe,” Isena says beside him. She turns, searching for something, anything. Isedd sees nothing but the reeve, the rest of his family spread behind him. Grimgar and Humbald are armed and stand with the eldest of their many cousins. Two mothers stand armed as well, and Isedd wishes he knew their names, but he has only been introduced to Ebba, Alfreth’s mother, and she is herding the youngest ones back from the gates. The approaching footsteps stop and when Isedd turns, the giant towers above them, a mountain of ice-blue and stone-grey flesh wound through with darker veins. Something glints from behind his head.

“Greetings, Gárwig Reeve,” Núrzum’s voice rumbles. There is the sound of an in-drawn breath and the winds die, the snowfall stopped in the space around the gates. Farther into Forlaw, the storm continues to dump snow outside their space of calm.

"How fare your sons, reeve? Do you still have any?”

“What do you want, giant?” Gárwig says. Isedd is impressed at his apparent calm.

Núrzum sighs and bends closer. _He is not the most flexible of creatures, is he_? Isedd thinks. “Speak up, Gárwig Reeve. The winds are loud. You are not.” Gárwig repeats himself, louder.

“This is the thing that killed Gársig?” Edsig says from Isedd’s left, voice low.

"Yes," Isedd says. Isena's elbow doesn't shut his mouth fast enough.

"Good.” Edsig’s voice is grim. He looks to his brother and Gárferth nods, gripping his shield tighter. Isedd realizes too late.

Gárferth charges first, his shield leading, Edsig in step one pace behind him, both of them bellowing for their lost brother.

“No- get back!” 

“Isena!”

Isena runs after the twins, gaining with a speed that seems inhuman. Isedd and Cyneberg are next closest, but before they can make half the distance Isena already has, the giant laughs and whatever has held the storm away from the gates is loosed. The winds return with impossible force to fill the void, stopping Isedd and Cyneberg dead in their tracks and flattening the others behind them.

The crackling of the ice spikes, the thump of a descending foot, shrieks. By the time Isedd fights his way upright, Isena is screaming for him and Núrzum is nothing more than a retreating shadow in the storm. Isedd fights the wind all the way to Isena’s side, kneeling in snow stained red and crushed flat all around. Edsig lies beside spikes of ice whose cold bites through what few layers Isedd had been wearing in the mead hall. One leg is crushed, mangled and ugly, lying within the hollow of Núrzum’s footprint. He is _screaming_. 

“I’m fine,” Isena says shortly at Isedd’s look. “Can you do anything?”

Isedd is already digging in his pouches. “I can hold him together, but you need to get him into town. Cyneberg!” He holds the sign in his mind and lays a hand on Edsig’s chest and wonders if anyone else can see the glow. Cyneberg is beside him when he opens his eyes. “Help Isena. There’s nothing I would be able to do for him out here.” Cyneberg nods, her face as white as the snow. They take Edsig, still screaming, and Isedd turns to find Gárferth.

 _Oh_.

Some of the rest of the reeve’s family is venturing closer from the gates, Gárferth's son among them.

“Alfreth, stop!”

Alfreth does not stop. Isedd steps in his path before he can round the ice spires. Alfreth grits his teeth. “Let me through.”

“Alfreth just-” Isedd sighs. “Just give me a moment.” He can spot other smaller shapes moving closer. “Your cousins won’t want to see this.” _And neither will you_. Something in his voice must strike something in Alfreth, because he doesn’t follow when Isedd turns away.

It’s not easy to get Gárferth down from the spike on his own, but the man is beyond caring. It seems Edsig escaped the same fate only by luck- or Isena’s intervention. There’s nothing Isedd can do about the warm blood steaming against the ice and snow, but he manages to cover the worst of the injury with his cloak before the others press close. 

Gárferth’s eyes are glazed and he isn’t breathing so much as sucking air. He has moments at most. Isedd closes his eyes.

Mundol and Toradan had been simple. A clean cut with a sharp sword; an easy matter to stitch back together. Or, uncomplicated at least. It was never easy. They didn’t have a hole the size of a man’s head punched through their gut. _There’s no way I can fix this in time_. He tries. Gárferth still breathes his last in the snow.

The rest of Forlaw suffers nothing more than a heavy snowstorm.

They hear nothing of Edsig for many hours. Cyneberg retreats to Thrymm’s home and invites Isedd and Isena along. 

“It will be less strange to have you there than to be there alone,” she admits as she unlocks the door.

She moves around the place with an ease that says this is as much her home as Thrymm’s. None of them say much, but Isena paces restlessly until she decides to raid the kitchen. She makes far more food than the three of them need, and takes the tenders of Lornsettle off-guard when she turns up with the extra- enough for just about anyone who wants some. Isedd and Cyneberg are, naturally, recruited to help carry it all.

“I didn’t realize Thrymm had this much food in his house,” Cyneberg says under her breath to Isedd. “He is the only one that lives there regularly.”

“It’s Isena,” Isedd whispers back. “I swear she can make twice as much food as she actually has the ingredients for.”

It’s the only point of levity that evening. Hereswith is summoned away early on to stay with her husband, and they wait in fear of a second runner asking for her children. It’s quiet. 

There are burials to plan and a whole host of mundane responsibilities to be tended to the next day. Isedd helps Cyneberg where he can while Isena does her best to keep Alfreth and his cousins occupied. The younger ones especially seem enamoured of their eldest cousin’s new friend, though Alfreth himself appears where Isedd and Cyneberg are comparing checklists and begs for something useful to do.

“I don’t think I can play at doing something much longer,” he admits. “If you have nothing for me I’ll go find some snow to clear.” Isedd looks over at a pile of dishes from the night before.

“I mean, if you’re really desperate for something to do…”

He’s rather surprised when Alfreth actually does start collecting the dirty plates and bowls.

Isedd doesn’t say much to Cyneberg beyond what is necessary while they work. If there are words to make this sort of loss hurt less, he does not know them. He thinks back to the days after the raid, recovering from their flight on Alse’s farm. Was there anything he had wished people would say to him? He had wanted left alone more than anything, allowed to curl up around the hurt and stop fighting it for just a minute. Isena had thrown herself into any farm task Alse would give her until she fell asleep exhausted at the end of each day.

Isedd can provide neither of those things for Cyneberg even if she should want them, so he simply helps her as best he can.

The funeral the next day is grim, as one might expect. Gárwig and all his surviving family are there, even Edsig, less a leg and terribly weak but determined to see his brother into the ground. The cemetery lies outside the bounds of the town, so Isedd and Isena take to the fields with a dozen other guards of Forlaw to give them the peace they can.

So little changes the next two days that Isedd has trouble marking them. On the third, a group of farmers from the Fallows shuffle into Lornsettle with stories of Núrzum. They had told Edsig and Gárferth days earlier, but most of it had had no opportunity to be passed on. Little of it is truly new, at least, but one of them had overheard a mention of some stone related to the storm that follows the giant.

“I wonder if that thing on his back has anything to do with it,” Isedd says, gazing at the ceiling.

“I thought that was just part of him,” Isena says. “That big lump behind his head?”

Isedd shakes his head. “No, it was… attached to him somehow. Rope, maybe. I’m not sure how else you would lash something that size to a giant’s body.” He had been otherwise occupied in Scylfig, but he had had a better sight at the gates of Forlaw. He hadn’t put much meaning to it until now, though. What sort of rock is tied to such a furious storm as this one? Not one Isedd wants to be anywhere near, probably. It’s their only lead, though. 

They toss ideas to each other over dinner with Cyneberg, but even the most rational speculations are practically baseless. There is nothing they can do without more information.

“I’m worried about the outlying towns, too,” Isena says. “I know we just made it back from Byre Tor, but Núrzum was headed into the mountains when we first ran into him and by all reports was headed around the far side of the lake after he stopped here. There’s no telling where he has gone or what trouble he has caused.” She rubs at her forehead. “Cyneberg, are there other villages or cities that might be big enough to be a target?”

Cyneberg shakes herself from her own thoughts. “Perhaps,” she says, clearing space on the table and rolling out a fine, detailed map of Wildermore from a heavy case. “It depends on what this creature wants, though. All we have had from him is death and taunts.” 

“He wants chaos,” Isena says, bending over the map. “Or at least instability. Look at everything we know was done at his hand- it’s targeted, deliberate.”

“The orcs are not so discriminating,” Cyneberg murmurs. “But the giant… Thrymm, my father, Gárwig’s sons. He stays long enough to see them dead and leaves again.”

“What does a giant stand to gain from this, though?” Isedd says. “Does he have a reason for vengeance specifically against Gárwig and his family?”

“The last time a giant wandered out of the mountains to cause trouble for us, Céolgar was still reeve,” Cyneberg says. “Thrymm’s father led the Riders that drove it out, Gárwig and my father among them. That would have been nearly fifty years ago, though. Gárnoth was Gárwig’s only son still.”

“The orcs bear the White Hand,” Isena points out quietly. “We know well enough what the Wizard might want.” Silence follows. Eventually Cyneberg sighs.

“I should return to Scylfig. Hunwald is a good man, but I have left him to deal with things alone for long enough.” She leans away from the map and crosses her arms. “I will tell Gárwig and leave in the morning. What will you two do?”

“We finally have something to look into with this stone,” Isedd says, “and like Isena said, there’s plenty of reason to worry about the other towns.” He traces a path around the Isingmere. “Dunfast and Byre Tor could easily be in his path- and those are only places that merit a name. How many other scattered homesteads lie between here and there?” Cyneberg nods.

“Gárwig may have further thoughts on the matter. You should speak to him before you leave.”

The three of them leave the house together the next day, bundling themselves against the biting cold that has not quite entirely dissipated even in Núrzum’s absence. They are redirected within minutes by a commotion at the gates, where a crowd of early risers whisper to each other. Cyneberg gently forces her way through, but when she reaches the center she stops dead.

“What is it?” Isena asks, standing on her toes and using Isedd’s shoulder for balance.

“A horse,” Isedd says. A vaguely familiar one, too, though he can’t place why.

“Godsefa,” Cyneberg says, so quiet Isedd can barely hear her. “Thrymm’s horse.”

Well, it does explain why no one else has yet dared to get close. The horse looks exhausted, though, and the cold is bitter. Isedd breaks the circle of onlookers and lays a hand on Godsefa’s nose. It hardly takes any convincing to get him to follow Isedd into the shelter of the nearby stables. Isedd waves Cyneberg and Isena away.

“Go on. I’ll meet you up there in a few minutes.” He isn’t sure if they listen, but they don’t follow him as he settles Godsefa. Smelly and Leitha greet him from a few stalls over and Isedd waves to them. “I’ll be right with you two.”

 _Who’s that_? Smelly sticks his head well into the hall. _Oh! Good to see you again. How’s your Rider? Haven’t seen him since the big fight last week. Where have-_

“Smelly, calm down. He just got here.”

 _Sorry_.

Godsefa snorts. Isedd finds a brush near the doors. _I don’t know what happened to Thrymm_. Despite his state, he raises his head to Isedd’s. _The giant pulled him from the saddle. I don’t know what happened next_. Isedd’s brushing slows.

“Do you believe him to live still?”

 _I don’t know_.

Godsefa says little else, and Isedd thinks he falls asleep as soon as he’s given the peace to do so. Isedd pats Smelly and Leitha and makes for Lornsettle deep in thought.


	10. onwards (isena)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (checks wordcount) oops

Cyneberg is silent the whole way to Lornsettle, glancing back towards the gates long after the buildings have hidden them from view.

“It could mean a lot of things,” Isena says. Cyneberg starts and looks at her. “Just…” Isena sighs. Nothing she says will change Cyneberg’s mind… and far be it from her to tell someone to abandon hope. “Just be careful.”

“You mean expect the worst.” Isena shrugs helplessly. Cyneberg shakes her head and leans on the railing that rings the area sheltered by the eaves of the hall.

It’s nearly a half hour until Isedd wanders up to them. He looks first to Isena and then to Cyneberg, who turns on him with burning eyes. “Godsefa doesn’t know what happened to Thrymm. Núrzum took him straight out of the saddle and Godsefa lost all sight of them in the storm.” Cyneberg’s eyes light further and Isena winces. The giant had crushed and impaled others without care already. It’s hard to believe he hadn’t done the same with Thrymm. The only alternative Isena can see is that Thrymm was instead _taken_ for some reason and that, if anything, seems worse.

“We should go in,” Cyneberg says, pushing open the heavy doors.

Isedd really does not seem to think it as odd as Isena that they are almost _expected_ to appear in Lornsettle, even if they had no business here. Alfreth and his cousins- those that are able and willing to venture out, after the rash of death- talk with them easily and they have been living with Cyneberg for days now. Isena would guess that Gárwig finds their perspective useful: fresh eyes on the problem and not so crippled with grief for the lost. They will need rest of their own soon, though, and neither of them are so distant that they feel nothing for these people. New they may be, but Isedd always has loved quickly. Isena is not so fast, but it would be a lie to say she does not care or that she shies away from the chance to help.

They follow Cyneberg into Lornsettle and no one bats an eye at it.

Gárwig approves of their plan to look into the stone, vague as it is, and asks that they look in on any settlements they pass by.

“It may be time to order evacuations,” the reeve muses. “Forlaw we might defend, but a town like Dunfast would be flattened without resistance.”

“Thane Aldstan will not be easy to persuade,” Isena says. “Not unless something drastic has changed in the last week.”

“He might heed the words of another thane,” Cyneberg says. “I could go with you. Three people will ride more safely than two.” _And might find Thrymm more quickly_ , Isena adds. Gárwig trusts to that hope even less than Isena does, but Cyneberg will not be dissuaded, especially not before she has even made the attempt.

Alfreth tries to come, too, cutting the three of them off before they can leave the hall. “If you say the word, Grandfather will almost certainly allow it.”

“Alfreth-”

“Please, Cyneberg. I can’t stay here and do _nothing_ while you ride out to find a way to fight this thing- or to find Uncle Thrymm.”

“Alfreth, we have no idea what we will find,” Cyneberg says gently. Anger flashes on Alfreth’s face and Isena winces internally. “Really, you should stay here and-”

“And do what?” Alfreth demands. “Wait? Hope that the next death we hear about isn’t yours? We can’t even go for help- the passes are still blockaded. What would you have us do here?”

“Prepare to receive whoever we can evacuate from the northern towns,” Isena says. Alfreth and Cyneberg both look at her in surprise. “There will be rationing to address, housing to arrange, a defense to order. It’s no small matter.” She knows something of Alfreth’s restlessness; action, motion, the idea that you are moving forward, not sinking in it- it means that everything that came before has a purpose besides just weighing you down, no matter what it was. 

“She’s right,” Cyneberg says. “Here and in Scylfig both.” She hesitates. “If Reeve Gárwig agrees, and has no other task for you, you might find Hunwald and see how you can help him.”

“What we do will mean nothing if there is nowhere to return to,” Isedd adds. Isena can practically read Alfreth’s thoughts on his face, unhappy, frustrated, but at last he steps aside and does not follow.

“You really do mean to come with us, and not return to Scylfig?” Isena asks as they enter the stables. Cyneberg strokes Godsefa’s nose and does not look at her.

“I do. I know what I said last night, but I do trust Hunwald, and if Alfreth does decide to go to Scylfig, he and Hunwald will both be in good company and steady hands.” Isena turns to Smelly and doesn’t let her judgement show. Scylfig has already lost her thane of many years. Isena doesn’t doubt that the city will survive, but even if Cyneberg comes away from this venture unscathed, her people will feel her absence. She is set in her course, though, and the three of them set out between an empty sky and sun-bright snow.

Isedd falls in beside Cyneberg as they ride, and Isena is glad to not be the one to take the brunt of conversation this time. She had done her best to help Humbald and Grimgar and their younger cousins hold themselves together at least until the funeral, but it had been exhausting in a way that made her long for an empty, silent room to think. Isena half-listens while Cyneberg tells stories, many of them of Thrymm or of her own adventures (which are rather more life-sized than Thrymm’s). 

“He always was the baby of the group,” she says fondly, recounting a festival in Forlaw when she was just twelve. “Granted, I am no more than a year his senior, but his cousins saw me seldom enough that they didn’t consider me a younger sibling the way they did him.”

Isedd breaks off as they cross the wind-swept plains along the south-western shore of the Isingmere to investigate a massive spire of ice casting odd shadow and reflection against the snow.

“It’s the same as the ice in Scylfig and Forlaw,” he says, riding a slow circle around the jagged ice crystals. “An order of magnitude bigger, but otherwise they seem the same.” Isena can feel the chill radiating off the ice from several yards away, but Isedd swings down from Leitha and walks closer, pulling his glove from his hand.

“Isedd, what are you-”

“Agh!” He’s touching it. “By Eorl, that thing’s cold.” He shakes his hand out and examines it. “Wow.”

“Should we be surprised that the giant ice spike, whose temperature I can more or less determine from here, is cold?” Isena says. She drifts closer, though, curiosity and concern fighting each other. Isedd backs away from the spire and returns to Leitha, still shaking his hand.

“I only touched it with a finger,” Isedd says, still poking at his hand. “Look.” The tip of his middle finger is a dark, ugly blue, and the rest of his hand is reddened, the lines of his palm outlined in frost. “Don’t get close enough to touch it,” he advises, tucking the hand under an arm.

“Wasn’t planning on it,” Isena says. She tilts her head to find the top of the ice. “The ice around Núrzum back in Forlaw wasn’t half this cold.”

“It was less than half this size.”

“This thing is the size of a tree. Can you imagine if something like this erupted in the middle of the city?”

“Do you really think it’s that great a possibility?” Cyneberg asks, drawing closer to them and frowning at the ice. Isedd shrugs.

“If he were bent on simple destruction, maybe.” He turns Leitha north again and Isena and Cyneberg follow. “There’s something else to consider, too. The blizzard seems to follow him, or perhaps the stone Torwulf heard about. I wonder how much control he has over it.”

Isena looks at him. “He seemed well enough in control at the gates, of the storm and the ice both.”

“Sure,” Isedd nods. “But both were localized and didn’t last more than a few minutes. It makes you wonder.”

_It makes_ you _wonder_ maybe. This sort of thing is still well beyond Isena’s expertise. She doesn’t often have a useful contribution to make, but Isedd always seems to appreciate being able to talk through it aloud.

They make it to Dunfast, buried in a foot and a half of undisturbed snow, and Isena can tell at once that it is empty. No smoke, no sound, no movement but for the wind in the pines. The mill still sits on the hill above the town- and behind it towers purple-blue ice crystals that dwarf even the ones on the plains.

“Don’t wander far,” Isena says, dismounting and forcing her way towards the nearest door.

The only damage that they find is a roof collapsed under the weight of the snow and a single locked door, forced open some time ago. Matwyn circles above and tells Isedd of tossed boulders and uprooted trees well beyond the bounds of the town, but there is nothing else in sight. It’s Cyneberg who finds the shards of ice and, unlike Isedd, she doesn’t touch them. They radiate cold the same way the larger ones had, and with surprising intensity for their size.

They look farther afield for any sign of the people of Dunfast. To the east they find the tracks of wargs and heavy, booted feet, but to the west Matwyn hears an argument between two men and guides them to a cold, hungry camp full of frightened faces. It takes little enough to convince them to leave, though Isedd cuts away on Smelly to track down a pair of fishermen and an old man by the name of Iothete. He returns alone some time later. His face is troubled, but he assures them that the scattered residents of the flatlands are on their way to Forlaw.

They are met two-thirds of the way back by Grimgar and Humbald with their cousin Cuthard. What exactly the three of them are doing is unclear, but they agree to escort the people of Dunfast the rest of the way to Forlaw while Isena and Isedd turn around and ride for Byre Tor with Cyneberg.

“What’s happening now has been in motion for a year at least,” Isedd says when the three of them are alone. He tells them Iothete’s tale of the stranger in the woods and his interrogation and the strange crystal-ice shards he had left behind. “You were right, Isena. It’s targeted, a deliberate attempt at destabilization. He wanted to know everything about the leadership and defenses of Wildermore.”

Isena shivers. The wind is blowing colder and the nervous energy that had followed them from Dunfast across the exposed, open plains has crept into her, and she has more than once caught herself straining for a hint of massive footsteps. The people of Dunfast had been lucky to flee when they did, but Núrzum still stalks between the Limlight and the Entwash.

They pass Dunfast again in the distance as they approach the steep slopes around Byre Tor, silent and cold and still. They are losing the light, purple-black shadows creeping onto the snow, and find shelter in a stone crevasse that is just a touch too shallow to be properly called a cave. Voices wake them in the middle of the night, huddled together in the not-cave.

“-to the Balewood! You must be joking.”

“As if following the thane will end much better. You saw how many were chasing them.”

Isena steps out of their shelter, spear in hand but pointed into the snow. Isedd grumbles as she jostles him awake.

“Hello there!" Isena calls. The voices stop. “We’re no orcs over here, and we’re far too small to be the giant. Who are you?”

Two women in the dress of Byre Tor turn the corner, outlined in starlight on the snow. Both of them look ready (if not quite prepared) to fight.

"I'm Isena," she offers.

"Alfwryn," one of the women says, still wary. "This is my sister-in-law Egelswith."

It takes another half hour to coax a story out of them, but they're eager enough to share what warmth there is to be had in the almost-cave.

Byre Tor was attacked in the night not two days past, orcs scaling the cliffs and Núrzum bringing the storm from the other side of the city, bellowing for Thane Aldstan. The people had scattered, and those who hadn't been cut down have spent the last two days trying to survive the cold long enough to flee to safety. Alfwryn and Egelswith are trying to make it north and down the cliffs to cross the Limlight towards Stangard. Others had fled east towards Grimnesberg and Scylfig and a few had gone west, into the Balewood.

“The Balewood is hardly the Dwimordene,” Cyneberg says, “but it is known to be haunted. It is an old forest, and few people venture beyond the eaves.”

The rest of the night is quiet except for a distant, echoing bellow from the direction of the Balewood at dawn. 

“What was that?”

Núrzum is Isena’s best guess; she can think of nothing else that could be so loud. She creeps out to an exposed ledge with a view of the peaks, but she sees nothing but snow and stone and far-off trees. She returns to the others.

“You want to go to the Balewood,” Isedd says when he sees her face.

“We are chasing answers, and that was almost certainly the giant.”

“You’re usually not in favor of detours.”

“I don’t believe this will be a detour.”

Isedd sighs. “What about our new friends here?”

“Don’t ask _us_ to go into that forest with you!” Alfwryn says, aghast. “Why are you even considering it yourselves?”

“It would be dangerous,” Cyneberg puts in. Her arms are crossed and she is looking east, away from the Balewood entirely. “If you are correct, you’ll be walking straight into the giant’s path.”

“But you should have a clear path to Byre Tor and Grimnesberg,” Isedd points out. “And to Thrymm, if fate is kind.” Cyneberg and Isena both stare at him.

“You mean to separate?”

“We have more than one goal here,” he says. “This may be the only way to reach them all.”

Cyneberg stares at her hands for several minutes. “Very well. I will see what there is to be found in the peaks.”

“We’re still going north,” Alfwryn says bluntly. “We are not so eager to chase either giants or orcs.”

Alfwryn and Egelswith should still be able to travel with Cyneberg for a time, though, and Isena crouches outside to watch the sunrise as they hash out details. The only movement she sees below is that of changing shadows.

She hears Matwyn’s cry just seconds before something large and bird-shaped lands in a puff of snow beside her. Matwyn lifts again to rest on Isena’s shoulder, and it seems the shape was rather that of two birds- Matwyn and a large crow she has thoroughly roughed up. She makes some bird noises at Isena.

"Sorry," Isena says. "You're going to need Isedd to interpret." Matwyn flaps her wings and glares at the crow. "Sure, I'll watch it. I don't think it's going anywhere, though." Matwyn chirps and pushes off Isena's shoulder. _Am I taking direction from a bird now_? She shakes her head.

“A spy from Isengard,” Isedd says, coming to her side with Matwyn on his arm. The oversized crow stares up at Isedd as he crouches beside it and croaks, hopping backwards in the snow. “I’m not going to hurt you,” Isedd says. “But I have a message for your master. He won’t win, here or anywhere else. We will see to it. Now go, and if you have any sense, take the rest of your flock with you.” The crow squawks and hops farther away, watching Isedd- or Matwyn, more like- until it has plenty of space to take off unmolested. Isena wonders if letting it escape is entirely wise.

They exchange goodbyes and good lucks with Cyneberg and make for the Balewood below.

“She may be walking into an army of orcs alone,” Isena says as they walk. Isedd’s face tightens.

“I know. At least we can be nearly certain Núrzum won’t be with them.” Silence for several minutes. “She wouldn’t have been dissuaded from searching for Thrymm for much longer,” he says eventually, quieter. He looks back towards the peaks above them. “Do you think she’ll find him?”

“No.” 

Isedd sighs. It may have been kinder to play at optimism for him, but they never have been in the habit of lying to each other. They pass under the roof of the forest.

Within an hour, Isena can feel eyes on her. It’s not like the immense, oppressive _presence_ of the Nazgûl’s gaze, but it’s as inescapable. 

“The trees don’t want us here,” Isedd murmurs. Matwyn comes to land on his shoulder, her talons visibly digging into his heavy clothing. Isena eyes the snow-covered branches.

“Sorry, trees. If it makes you feel any better, we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t have to be.” Isedd laughs at her.

It’s slow going. The trees are old, even here near the edge, gnarled and bent and close together, leaving no clear path forward. For hours, they see nothing. They are not entirely beyond the mountain foothills here and cliffs and steep hills rise and fall among the trees. Light breaks through to the forest floor to their left and a wall of stone rises off to their right. Isena squints at the light. A clearing? A very wide one, if so. She waves to Isedd and wanders closer. She pokes her head out into a crude road, more a trail of tree stumps than an actual path, lined in large stretches by walls of Núrzum’s ice. She can hear shouts and movement farther up the road and retreats before they come close enough to see. 

“I’m not sure where it starts, but it looks new,” she says quietly to Isedd. “And it’s not empty. It seems like Núrzum uses it, but I didn’t see any recent sign of him.”

“Further up the road?”

Isena shrugs. “We may find something that direction. Keep quiet.”

Isedd stops not five minutes later. “Do you hear that?”

She does. Voices near the road. She's still trying to make out the words when they turn to screams. Isena and Isedd dismount and run, leaving Smelly and Leitha to pick their way forward on their own. 

They nearly collide with a group of perhaps a dozen people struggling through the snow and tree roots, most of them screaming. Isena scans the trees. There’s movement, but she can’t quite make out what is moving among the trunks. She squints and moves past the runners, spear forward and shield up.

A rock comes hurtling at her and she drops to the snow with a yelp. Was it the _trees_? She jumps back up, searching for the source of the stone. _There_. Far too person-shaped to be a tree, but certainly not human. One of the men trips on a root and falls lengthwise in the snow and screams as one of the tree-things pounces. Isena’s spear is in the air before she stops to think. The creature staggers and Isena shouts as she charges at it. The prone man scrambles to his feet and flees past her as she sets a foot on the creature’s chest approximant and pulls her spear loose.

There are others around her, closing in on her as she stands ready. She can hear the man’s friends shouting for him behind her and she backs away from the tree-like things step by step. They seem to be waiting for her to make a move- or a mistake. The one she speared snarls at her and she bares her teeth at it. They all wait.

“Isena, eyes!”

She ducks her head behind her shield and screws her eyes shut. Even so she can see the brightness of whatever trick Isedd has used. The creatures ringing her shriek as the light blinds them and she takes the opportunity to turn and run towards Isedd’s voice.

“Come on! There’s a cave nearby.”

There’s no helping the trail they leave, but Isena doesn’t hear any pursuit and nothing disturbs them for the twenty minutes she stands guard at the mouth of the cave while Isedd tends to the injuries of those who survived. Isena warily retreats into the less frigid cavern.

These people are, as Isena supposed, the people of Byre Tor Alfwryn had mentioned. Not all of them had made it to the Balewood to begin with, and they had lost several more to the orcs along the road, the weather, and to the wood-trolls and other angry plant life.

“The trees do move,” Bébba, a remarkably level-headed woman for the circumstances, says matter-of-factly. “Pull their roots right out of the ground and walk around as well as you or I might. They’re not fond of us, but they have a grudge against the orcs for something or other.”

“What a charming forest,” Isena mutters. Isedd elbows her but at least Léodwald, the man she had saved with her charge, snorts in amusement. His arm is bandaged from wrist to elbow. “Right.” She stands and starts pacing. “You can’t stay here. Unsupplied and hunted, you won’t last two nights.” Where to take them, then. Byre Tor is out of the question, of course, and anything beyond it is too far distant and the road between likely overrun.

“Dunfast?” Isedd suggests. “At the very least it should be safe enough for a night.”

“And after that it’s a straight shot back to Forlaw,” Isena agrees. It had been unpleasant and exposed enough the first time and she doesn’t care for the idea of making the trip again, especially if they draw any pursuit, but they have little in the way of options. “What do you think?” she asks the others.

“Do you really think we’ll make it?” one of them asks.

“I think it’s your best chance.”

“You talk as if you won’t be following,” another man says. Húna, Isena thinks. He had been frantically checking on each of his companions even in the middle of their flight. She trades a look with Isedd.

“We came here to find out anything we can about the giant. We can get you safely to Dunfast, but I can’t promise what happens after that.”

“It’s a worry for tomorrow anyway,” Isedd says. “None of you are fit to make a run for it right now.”

Isena and Isedd share what provisions they have with them and keep a watch at the mouth of the cave, but nothing bothers them before dawn. Isena can hear distant movement that may or may not be the wind the whole time. 

Isedd stands beside her for a time before they trade watches, flexing his hand. Isena nods at it.

“Are you alright?”

He shrugs. “It’s cold, and it will be awhile before the discoloration fades, especially in this weather, but it should be fine.”

Isena shakes her head. “That really was not the best idea you’ve ever had.”

“Oh shut up.” He shoves her shoulder and she laughs. “It made perfect sense to see what it felt like up close.”

“Sure.”

They bundle themselves as well as they can against the cold and set out into the grey morning wood. They follow the line of the cliff in which the cave is nestled until they can scale the slope to higher ground. They must still be two hours at least to the edge of the trees. Maybe more. Isena falls back to watch the rear.

Isedd calls a halt soon after, motioning everyone into hiding. It’s a bad spot- they have the high ground, but to the right is a sheer drop whose full height is hidden by the snowy limbs of trees whose roots tangle with those of the cliff. To their left rises a hill too steep to climb, especially for the injured among them, and behind them is only a narrow stretch of icy stone they had barely managed to cross before. They pack themselves against the hill and crouch low, holding their breath. Minutes pass like years.

“The wargs smell something,” an unfamiliar voice barks from ahead. Isena’s thoughts are full of curses. “You two, take a look.”

Two light-footed goblins creep into sight, low to the ground. Isena hands her spear to Léodwald, crouched beside her, and pulls a knife. Isedd does the same. She adjusts her grip and grimaces. Not her favored weapon, but she can make do. The goblins don’t seem to notice them before they wander into knife range and Isena and Isedd take them out in near-silence. They strip the goblins of reachable weapons and pass them to the others.

It reduces the number of their foes by two, but the wargs smell the blood.

It’s a scouting party, no bigger than their own group. There are two wargs, each with another goblin atop them, and three powerful uruks. They charge, and there is nowhere for Isena and the others to go.

Isena braces her spear and sets herself in the path of one of the wargs. It’s no proper polearm, but it is sturdy and both the warg and its rider are careless. The weight of the warg’s charge still bowls Isena over and its claws rake at her leg as it spasms and dies, the goblin trapped beneath it until one of the Byre Tor men stabs it. Isena struggles upright, blood spattering the snow, and moves forward. The man, Manni, pulls something spear-looking from the goblin and takes up a position just behind and to the right of Isena. They advance on one of the uruks together, and together they take him down. Shouts echo the trees around them.

Isena frees her spear and looks around, trying to catch her breath in the frozen air. Isedd and Matwyn fight beside Húna, and Bébba and Léodwald fight beyond them. The other warg is engaged with a number of the others. Isena stands and shouts through clenched teeth as her bloodied leg threatens to give out beneath her. One of the uruks stands near the edge of the cliff, spattered with blood but drawing a massive bow with ease, sighting on Húna, or perhaps Isedd. Isena screams and charges, her pain forgotten. The uruk braces herself, but it avails her little when Isena crashes into her, shield leading. Isena feels as if she has just rammed a brick wall, but the uruk falls backwards and she follows. The uruk grasps blindly at her and she can feel the shock reverberate through the wood of the spear as something _cracks_. They fall through tree branches until the ground appears at last, cold and deadly. They hit it and roll, falling farther and farther from the cliff until her head strikes a tree trunk and things go dark.

“ _Hmmm_?”

\---

It’s hazy and cold. Another snowstorm? Something heavy drags at her left arm and something thin is clutched in her right hand.

She is lifted at some point, and the world shudders in rhythm below her like a heart. Like footsteps. She can feel something tight around her chest. She struggles.

“Hush, little one. You will be well.”

It’s a strange voice. No one she knows has a voice like that. She fades out again.

“What is this?” Ah, that’s a more normal sounding voice. She is laid down on something cold and hard and struggles to open her eyes. She can hear rushing water nearby.

“Our limbs are not made for delicate work,” the strange, slow voice says. Isena pries her eyes open at last.

There’s a tree, and a stone ceiling above her, and to her right a pool of water. To her left stands a man-shaped figure, white-robed and white-haired, a staff in hand.

_White Wizard_.

No.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on the bright side though, most of the rest of this is already written, bc i could apparently work on any part of it except the one that came next (this one)


	11. ice on the heights (isedd)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> or, the one in which isedd has a very bad day and about 10% of his self-control or filter

The last of the fighting is dying away and Isedd stumbles back, panting, hoping the battle rush will carry him just a little bit further. 

“Isena!” Her scream is still echoing in his ears, but he cannot see her anywhere. “Isena!”

A heavy hand grasps his shoulder and he turns. “I saw her-” Manni chokes out. “She rushed a big one with a bow. They- I’m sorry, Isedd.”

“Sorry? Sorry for what?” He knows. He knows that he knows, and he is avoiding thinking it because then it is incontrovertibly real.

“They both went over the edge.”

Isedd runs to the very edge of the rocky cliff. Broken branches point to the ground, so very far below. A length of wood, splintered at one end, sits in the snow and dirt beside him. Isena’s spear. There is no sign of the other half. No sign of Isena. He wants to scream, or else find a way down after her, but Bébba is already rallying the others to her. They cannot stay here. Another scouting party will find them for certain, if not something worse.

“Matwyn!” The eagle alights on the stone before him. “Find her.” Matwyn tips her head. 

_But what about_ \- 

“Just _find_ her.” Isedd’s voice cracks. “Please.” Matwyn fluffs her wings and leaps into the sky. He watches her grow smaller and smaller until Húna pulls him to his feet. They flee for Dunfast as fast as they can, heedless of the trail left behind them.

They make it to the town without further incident, though the trees creak ominously around them until they leave their shadow. They lock themselves in the barn and collapse, even the hardiest of them pushed to the edge of exhaustion. Isedd pushes Smelly and Leitha into an empty stall and sits heavily against the wooden walls, breathing too fast. _Isena..!_ He shouldn’t have left. He should have- she would have told him to go. To get their charges to safety as they had promised. She could be fine. He could easily have misjudged the cliff’s height and she knows where they were headed. She could be just behind them.

_You judged it aright_ , a voice like the dead of their family says in his head. _If she survived the fall itself, she no doubt lies broken at the bottom, waiting for help that won’t come_. Smelly noses at Isedd in concern and he leans his head against the horse’s, tangling his hand in Smelly’s mane until he snorts in protest.

“Sorry,” he whispers. He can hear the others moving in the middle of the barn. He takes several deep breaths. He thinks someone calls for him.

_I should check Léodwald’s arm, in case it got jostled in the flight_. But it is hard to move, just now. Guilt drives him forward and up even as he begs in his heart for them to leave him be. He just… he can’t care right now. _Liar_ , he thinks at himself. It sounds almost like Isena, dryly amused, and it hurts like a spear to the gut. _I told you it wasn’t worth this_ , he thinks. But she might not be lost, right? It was a long fall, but if anyone could survive it, she could. He hopes as much, even if he doesn’t believe it true.

Isena is the only one they have lost. Any injuries taken in the fight or the flight that followed are easily tended and no one stops Isedd from retreating again. He shouldn’t have left her. He should go back. He stands, ignoring his sore legs and grumbling stomach.

Leitha refuses to move from the stall and Smelly follows her lead. 

“We have to go find her,” Isedd snaps. Leitha butts her head into his chest.

_Not like this. Rest_.

“I can’t,” he says. “If she is still alive, she’s going to be running out of time.”

_Do you believe she is alive? Truly?_ Isedd steps away from Leitha as if burned. He gives her no answer, which is likely all the answer she needs. In the end, he _is_ exhausted, and he falls asleep against his own wishes, wondering if hope alone is enough to bring someone back.

There are enough stores still scattered in Dunfast to last Bébba and the others a couple days at least, and this place is as safe as anywhere else nearby. There seems to have been no pursuit from the Balewood overnight, though they all know that is hardly a promise of safety. The others decide to stay here long enough to recover their strength before striking out for Forlaw, but Isedd leads Smelly and Leitha out into the snow soon after he wakes.

“You aren’t staying with us?” Léodwald asks, following him out. Isedd shakes his head, readjusting Smelly’s bags.

“I have to go on and find- whoever’s left.” He meets Léodwald’s eyes. “I’m sorry." Léodwald waves him off and hands him a skin of almost-frozen ale scavenged from the town.

“You have done more than enough for us already. You said you had a mission beyond helping a band of escapees anyway, didn’t you?”

“I do.”

“Then go, and good luck to you.” Léodwald hesitates. “I hope you find her.” Isedd gives him a half-hearted smile and leaves.

_What am I doing_? Returning to the Balewood, and aiming for the site of a recent skirmish, and all of it alone, is practically begging for trouble. Searching elsewhere in the forest is likely just as foolhardy, even if it had been his and Isena’s original intent to find something they could use there. _Find Cyneberg? Help her look for Thrymm and any other survivors_? Or turn around and stay with those in Dunfast and escort them back to Forlaw. That feels too much like giving up, though. _And that is stupid_ , he thinks. It doesn’t change how he feels. He lets Smelly plod forward in no great hurry, pointed somewhere near the boundary between the Balewood and the peaks.

In the end, he chooses to go after Cyneberg. He wants so badly to have faith in his sister’s ability to survive, but this might test even her. _You think she is beyond your help_. That much is true, one way or another. Maybe if he finds someone else in the mountains, maybe he thinks it will make up for the hole growing in his chest every time he pictures the cliff again.

Isedd is not careful climbing back towards Byre Tor. Despite this, not a single living creature bothers him. He comes in time to a small cave that overlooks the city from a distance, just large enough to shelter him and the horses from the wind for an evening. He is just beginning to drift into uneasy sleep when he catches the smell of woodsmoke. He blinks himself awake, groggy and disoriented.

At the back of this cave lies a crack in the wall, nearly invisible in this light. A breath of smoke wafts out of it, and this time Isedd can hear voices, too. He makes Smelly and Leitha comfortable and pushes his way through the narrow, winding passage until it widens into a larger cavern easily the size of a house.

“Hey! Who are you!”

Isedd throws his hands up and stops short before any of the angry-looking women in the cave come at him with- he squints. _Is that a rolling pin_?

They call this cave Steaping, the four of them. They saw Cyneberg the evening before, sweeping through with a pinpoint focus and an odd collection of supplies scavenged from the outskirts of Byre Tor. Thane Aldstan had died of wounds from the attack not long after Cyneberg left, following after his son. At the mention of Céolstan the women go silent. They shoot glances at one of their number, who shrinks in on herself and retreats to the edge of the cave. Isedd sits beside her.

“How fare the other cities?” she asks quietly. “Cyneberg didn’t say much when she was here.”

“Most of my news is a week old at least,” Isedd says. She shrugs. He tells her what he knows of the fates of the other towns. She asks few questions, listening intently.

“In Forlaw, did you meet my friend Alfreth by chance?” she asks anxiously when he is done.

“I did. Last I saw, he was as well as could be expected.” Ránmald nods, something in her face easing.

“It’s good to hear that of anyone, these days.”

Isedd glances at the other women. “What’s their problem?” Ránmald only shakes her head.

“It’s nothing. You cannot be friends with everyone.” She refuses to explain more and Isedd doesn’t press, letting the warmth of the fire lull him.

He is feeling rather less charitable by the next morning, cold and sore and aching every time he turns his head to find someone who isn’t there.

The other women’s voices are soft but the cave echoes and there is nothing but the crackle of the fire to cover it up. Ránmald still huddles on the far side, staring into the flames as if she cannot hear them with perfect clarity. Isedd’s hand clenches around Isena’s spear.

“Really? Have you _nothing_ better to occupy yourselves with than shunning one of the few survivors you have left?” They turn on him with more surprise than anger. They must have forgotten he was here. “What could she have done to deserve so much of your spite and energy, especially now?” He ignores Ránmald trying to wave him down. Frithwyn snorts.

“Stay out of this. It’s neither your problem nor your concern.”

“No.”

“And what do you know of the situation, or of us, stranger?” Frithwyn snaps.

“You mean beyond the sack of your city or the fact that you would sooner see her freeze than look at her?”

“The people of Byre Tor are survivors.” Frithwyn jerks her chin at Ránmald. “She will have to be the same, now. We will do well enough for our own.” She clearly doesn’t wish to include Ránmald in that number.

“Yes, you’re doing so very well now.” Isedd takes a deliberate look around the cave. “Your thane and his son both dead, half-frozen, practically no supplies to speak of, no path to safety. You must have everything well in hand.”

He can practically touch the anger in the air.

It’s Ránmald that speaks first, to his surprise. “Isedd,” she says quietly, her voice more even than he has heard it since his arrival. “Enough. This is helping nothing.”

None of the other women give so much as a half-hearted disagreement. Isedd brushes past them ungently and marches out of the winding passage and back into the snow. The wind buffets him and he pulls his cloak close. He leaves Smelly and Leitha in the smaller cavern and climbs, forcing his way through knee-deep snow until he comes to a slope too steep to walk. There’s a cliff face that isn’t ice-covered enough to keep him from climbing just to the left, and he follows it up until he finds himself on a snowy ledge overlooking the peaks. He can see Byre Tor in the distance, banners of the White Hand snapping in the wind. The skies are clear- he can see for miles it seems. Ice and snow cover it all. Even the trees hardy enough to grow in the heights to begin with are dead or dying, burst from the cold or buried by the weather. Nothing moves but for him.

He takes out the fragment of Isena’s spear and traces the delicate designs he had carved into it. She had been so happy when he gave it to her, carrying it with her around the farm for days until Alse had suggested that it was maybe not necessary or helpful to the business of planting. She had never had all _that_ much reason to use it, really, but she always did treasure even the little carvings he gave her, lined up in her room beside Adina’s rather less experienced attempts and a dozen other trinkets from friends. Isedd holds the wood to his chest and curls in on himself on the ledge, head on his knees as the wind plays pipes on the mountain crags.

It’s hours later, well past dark, when he finally returns to the Steaping cave. Most of the goats he stumbled across while he wandered have made it here safely, though Smelly and Leitha are less than pleased to be sharing their space. Isedd struggles back through the passage and dumps an armful of heavy furs on the ground. He tells them about the goats, but not about the cave of less-fortunate escapees from the city. Whether it was simple cold or not he still isn’t sure. He leaves the cave again without more than a few words of goodbye and leads Smelly and Leitha into the dark, heading east.

He finds Cyneberg at the top of the next mountain, watching a dying fire without seeing. She doesn't look up until Isedd sits beside her with a heavy sigh. She is alone.

"I had hoped you at least might have had some luck." He can't manage a lighter voice. He had read the story of Grimnesberg's fate easily enough on the long climb up. Cyneberg breathes out.

"Hope doesn't seem to be doing us any good of late." Her voice is as dead as he feels.

"No sign of him?"

"Nothing."

Silence. Neither of them move. A cold wind blows in from the southwest and they shiver. Cyneberg looks around at last. Isedd braces himself for the question.

"Where is Isena?" Isedd flinches and finds he cannot answer. "Matwyn?" He can only shake his head. Cyneberg's breath hitches. "I'm sorry."

"I never saw- a body," Isedd says softly, his voice cushioned by the ever-present snow. "It's not impossible…" But he is loath to trust to hope just now, even if he wants to with a desperation to match Cyneberg's just days earlier. “I sent Matwyn to find her, but I have heard nothing yet.”

The silence on the peak weighs on them both. It isn’t until Cyneberg’s shivering becomes unignorable that Isedd pulls them both to their feet. There is no shortage of empty homes here, now, and they find one that has survived better than its neighbours for the evening. Cyneberg tends to Smelly and Leitha alongside her own horse while Isedd builds up a fire in the hearth. He isn’t frugal with the wood and soon it is warm enough to shed his snow-soaked cloak. The scavenging here isn’t difficult, and he has a simple stew simmering by the time Cyneberg makes it inside. The quiet still is heavy, wound around and between them and outlining the empty spaces beside them. At least they are warm in here.

Eventually Cyneberg sighs. “We should sleep, and start back to Forlaw in the morning.” It’s all they say for the rest of the night. They sleep back to back before the fire, finding whatever comfort they can in each other’s presence.

They leave in near-darkness the next morning. The mountain paths are treacherous, but they had woken to the dying fire and saw no point in relighting it so close to dawn. They leave Grimnseberg behind, and near noon come upon a handful of orcish corpses half buried in new snowfall.

“It must have been some fight, to take all of these by yourself,” Cyneberg says, quietly impressed.

“...This wasn’t me.” She looks up.

There are more nearby, and a trail of blood beyond them. They follow it, and Isedd tries so very hard not to let hope get the better of him. _Even if she is alive, the Balewood is far from here and she was injured even before the fall_. 

It’s Thrymm. He’s here, injured and half-dead of the cold, but _alive_. Cyneberg gasps and laughs and throws herself at Thrymm, though he winces and clutches at his ribs and she jumps away again immediately, expression contrite. Thrymm leads them to the cave where he has been sheltering and tells them his story through gritted teeth as Isedd carefully wraps his chest.

“Núrzum plucked me right out of Godsefa’s saddle. I don’t know what he intended, but I sounded my horn and he dropped me. He tried to crush me underfoot. Thankfully, he missed, but he left me there in the snow and didn’t look back.” Thrymm’s brows draw together. “It seemed as if the horn pained him. I wonder…” He glances down. “Not that it matters, I suppose. I dropped it in the fall, and I had not the presence of mind to retrieve it after even if it had landed near me.”

“We found it,” Isedd says. His tone is short even to his own ears and he has to force his next words to be gentler. “It was the only sign of you the scouts found. Gárwig has it now.”

“We need to get back to Forlaw,” Cyneberg says. “We have no shortage of news.”

Godsefa is still in Forlaw, but Smelly is willing to carry Thrymm, though it does take some convincing first.

_What if we find Isena? I’m not carrying both of them._

_We won’t_ is the first response that comes to mind, but instead Isedd says: “We’ll figure it out when we get there.”

Thrymm frowns at the arrangement. “What about Isena?” Isedd’s jaw tightens.

“She’s not here.”

Thrymm glances at Cyneberg. “What ha-”

“I would rather only go through it once,” Isedd says, voice flat. At least it’s an improvement from misdirected anger. “There are refugees from Byre Tor scattered all through the peaks- what of them?”

“Most of them are as safe as we can make them by ourselves,” Cyneberg says. “We can send out better rescue parties from Forlaw- and if we can drive off the giant, they will be that much safer.” Isedd nods once.

“Alright.”

Scylfig is closer than Forlaw and so they make it their first destination, Thrymm interrogating them all through the ride on what he has missed. There’s a lot, for not even two weeks. Isedd stays silent, a ways ahead of Thrymm and Cyneberg. 

It’s not that he is upset to see Thrymm- far from it. There is plenty of strategic importance in his return, of course, and closer to the heart it is good to see Cyneberg so happy, especially after how Isedd had found her the night before. There’s still a sour knot inside of him, though. He pokes at it- disappointment, fatigue, an aimless ball of anger-sadness-hurt spinning like a misled compass, something like jealousy. _You wish it was Isena_. Of course he does. How could he not? _And if Thrymm lives, that means Cyneberg was right to hope, and would have been right to go after him the same day. If Thrymm lives, Isena could too, and where does that put you?_ The understanding doesn’t make the feelings go away.

There is news for them in Scylfig- two new parties out of the Wold have made their way past the blockades, the second sent after the first vanished like every other group that has come this way in the last two months. Alfreth is here, working with Cyneberg’s steward to prepare the city as Isena had suggested and eager to tell them about the others Harding had sent.

“Harding’s son was here first, but his group ran afoul of Núrzum somewhere between here and Byre Tor,” Alfreth says. “The second group was an odd one. The king’s minstrel and his apprentice, a pair of elves, one of Prince Théodred's men, and some woodsman from the north- what would they be doing riding here at Harding’s request? It was strange. They kept talking about a Dunlending woman, too, but I never saw anyone of the sort. Who in-”

“A Dunlending woman?” Cyneberg cuts in, almost startled. “Was her name Nona by chance?”

Alfreth shrugs. “If they mentioned it, I never heard it, and they got quiet when I asked, especially Horn. They moved on pretty quickly, too. Why do you ask?”

“Someone I met in one of the caves near Byre Tor… she saved several of the wounded from the city and is still caring for them.”

A good ten minutes pass before Horn’s name registers in Isedd’s mind. _What is he doing so far from Stangard_? Alfreth has long since moved on, though, and before much longer Thrymm and Cyneberg are ready to gallop the rest of the way to Forlaw.

Gárwig leaps from his seat to embrace Thrymm when they enter Lornsettle. Thrymm gives no outward indication that his ribs are still cracked, but Isedd can see the worry in Cyneberg’s face. Too soon the reeve turns to Isedd.

“I cannot help but notice your sister’s absence.” Isedd takes a deep breath and lays out the whole meandering tale. His voice breaks somewhere between leaving Dunfast and arriving at Steaping and Cyneberg mercifully takes over the report with an account of her solo travels. Gárwig thanks them and urges them all to find some rest and Isedd takes the opening to escape. Thrymm stays behind to speak with his uncle but Cyneberg follows him out to the edge of the stone on which Lornsettle perches.

“I’m sorry, Isedd,” she says, hugging him tightly.

He clears his throat. “Don’t be. This is a happy day- Thrymm is returned and we finally have a hint of how to fight Núrzum.” Cyneberg’s look says clear as day that she sees right through him, and understands. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says. “We have some planning to do if we truly are going to try to bring the fight to him.” He leaves before she can say anything more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really expected isena to be the one i yelled through in this one but! here we are instead
> 
> isena hanging out with trees should be here in [checks watch] 1-3 business weeks?


	12. a quite charming forest (isena)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> contains the obligatory spider quests! starts at "She sleeps eventually, though she is woken in darkness..." and ends five paragraphs later at "They don’t, to Isena’s relief..."

She rolls to her feet.

Rather, she tries to, and the Wizard’s staff pokes her firmly in the chest until she is forced back to the ground. She catches her breath, glaring up at the white-robed man.

“Lie still,” he says irritably. “Your ribs will thank you for it.” She keeps glaring at him. She is sore all down her left side, though, once she takes inventory of herself. The Wizard turns to the tree. “Really, did you need me for this?” The tree seems to shrug and Isena wonders if she hit her head perhaps too hard.

“This is not the kind of tending I am made for,” the tree says. Isena doesn’t remember the creatures Bébba and the others had called wood-trolls speaking.

“This is not why _I_ am here either,” the Wizard grumbles. He looks down at Isena. “It will be this evening at least before you are fit to move, but if you truly cannot restrain yourself I would still advise it no earlier than mid-afternoon. Now-” he turns. “I have business to be about here besides tending to stray Rohirrim found by curious ents.” He looks back at the tree. “On that note, did Baillas discover what became of Léofmar?”

“Yes. He is well, and well beyond the forest by now.”

“Good.” The Wizard’s back is turned. Isena tries to quietly lift herself up, searching for anything that she might use as a weapon. The Wizard spins and jabs a finger at her and she freezes. “You did hear me, did you not, young horse-lord?”

“Uhm-”

He sighs, exasperated. “Take half a moment to rest and then you will be well on your way.”

"Who are you?" she asks before he can make his escape. 

"Most have been calling me Gandalf of late."

Gandalf. She’s heard that name once or twice hasn’t she? “The Rangers’ Wizard?” And decidedly not Saruman. If he is telling the truth.

He snorts. “I like that- ‘the Rangers’ Wizard’. I suppose in some ways I am, you could say. In any event, I really must be off. You will be quite safe in the care of Quickbeam here.” The Wizard turns in a flare of robes and vanishes from her sight, leaving Isena alone in a cave with a tree-person that talks. She stares at the ceiling.

“What?” she whispers. Wood creaks. She looks over. “ _What?_ ”

“What?”

“‘What’ any of it.” Isena waves her hands aimlessly. “Just… _what_ in the world is happening.”

“ _Hm_. A great many things are happening. Trees are growing. Flowers are decaying. You are healing. Does that answer your question?”

“Not in the slightest, but thanks anyway.” She sits up and gasps as pain lances through her side.

“You were told not to do that, little one.”

“Yeah, well,” she grumbles, feeling at her ribs. _Well, when in doubt, say hello_. “Anyway, I’m Isena.” She gives a little wave, one arm around her middle.

“I am Quickbeam.”

“Pleased to meet you, Master… Tree?”

“I am an ent.”

“Right. Sorry.” She looks around. Beside her is a clear pool fed by a fall of water whose source is hidden by the stone walls of the grotto. Ferns and soft moss cover large swathes of the place and the air is surprisingly warm. “Where are we?”

“You are in one of my homes here in Fangorn.” Quickbeam waves his massive wooden limbs broadly at the place. “I am partial to this one, myself.”

She’s in the middle of Fangorn Forest. Talking to a tree-person that’s entirely different from the tree-people that had tried to kill her… well, she has no idea how long it’s been. _Isedd_. Her heart drops. What had happened? Her last memory is of falling with the uruk and then rolling until they hit a tree. She looks up at Quickbeam. “Can I just... ask you a few questions?”

“You may ask,” he says. Isena thinks he sounds wary.

“Thanks. How did I get here?”

It takes a long time for him to tell her everything. Even in the speech of mortal tongues ents are not quick to conversation (not even Quickbeam). 

Isena and the uruk she had tackled from the cliff rolled not into a tree but into the leg of another ent. Strongroot had nearly crushed them both underfoot before the uruk had scrambled away, spitting curses at Isena and her ‘damned tree guardian’. Strongroot had deemed Isena no orc-friend, but she had been badly injured, a truth she still feels in her throbbing ribs.

“We have heard of the ice that covers their corner of Fangorn,” Quickbeam rumbles. “But we have had problems of our own here.” _Just how far am I from the Balewood_? “Strongroot brought you south to find help that was _hmmm_ less frozen.” Strongroot had passed Isena to Quickbeam before returning to his own haunts, and Quickbeam had in turn brought Isena here, where someone whose hands weren’t roughly the size of her entire body might be able to help her. “Though I imagine the ent-draught did much on its own.” 

“Ent-draught?”

 _That_ question leads to far more explanation of the nature of ents (and huorns and wood-trolls and regular old trees and-) than Isena had ever thought to even want to know. _Isedd would have the time of his life here_. That thought jabs her with worry again.

“How are we from the Balewood- from where Strongroot found me?”

“ _Hmm_. I know the distance in ent-strides only, but… it would take perhaps two days to return.”

“How long is an ent-stride?”

Quickbeam demonstrates. Two days of that would be very far away indeed.

The day is tipping into evening by the time Isena has exhausted the most pressing of her questions. She sits and stares into the pool, trying to put things in any sort of perspective. She is somewhere deep in Fangorn, somewhere nearly as bad as the Dwimordene by the stories. Her brother is days away at best and her last sight of him had been in the middle of a skirmish they were ill-prepared for. They have spent the better part of a month trying to do anything at all useful in Wildermore. She met a Wizard that is maybe the same one Toradan had mentioned four months ago but is maybe instead the one she is here trying to oppose, disguised and lying. Her ribs ache, and so does her leg where the warg had clawed her, but neither of them as much as she thinks they should. In fact, the pain is noticeably better than when she had first awoken. Her clothes seem to have shrunk and her ankles are cold. 

Where do you even start with all of that?

Basic survival, she supposes. It’s warm enough here- especially in comparison to the lands Núrzum has touched- that she isn’t worried about the weather. The pool is clear and hasn’t done her any harm thus far, but she has no real appetite, and that concerns her some. Anything to defend herself with, then? She has a small knife at her waist still, more tool than weapon, and the remains of her shield lie splintered on the cave floor, bits of wood dangling from leather straps. Straps that seem to have been cut away with a knife, she notes. _Spear_? If she’s very lucky, she may not have dropped it in the snow. She looks around.

Oh.

Maybe dropping it would have been better. She had missed it in her first pass over the shield, but there among the fragments lies her spear, metal tip and a foot and a half of beautifully carved wood that ends in splinters. She sits and stares at it for a very long time.

“What is that?” Quickbeam asks eventually. Isena jumps.

“It was a gift from my brother.” She sniffs and wipes at her face. _He was so proud of it when he first showed it to me. With good reason, too_.

Quickbeam leans in. “It looks like a stick.”

Isena laughs and sniffs again. “It’s a very special stick.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it’s from my brother.”

“ _Hmmm_. Is your brother a tree?”

Isena squints up at the ent. “Are you making fun of me?”

“Does that sound like a very entish thing to do?”

“I don’t know. I’ve known you for about six hours.”

Most of her gear is packed away in Smelly and Leitha’s saddlebags, but she has enough on her in pockets and pouches to find spare cloth to wrap around the broken spear shaft and secure it. It will hardly be a worthy dagger, but it’s better than the little knife at her belt, and far better than nothing. She tucks the spear into her belt and turns to Quickbeam.

“Which way do I go to get back to the Balewood from here?”

Quickbeam looms over her. “You do not wish to leave the forest altogether? That is unusual.”

“I have to find my brother and finish what we started.” Whether she wants to stay in Fangorn or not. She looks out the mouth of the cave and up through the small gap in the trees to the pitch-black sky. There’s no way she makes much progress tonight. First thing tomorrow then. She sighs to herself and tries to find a comfortable position to sleep. She doesn’t fail to notice that Quickbeam had not answered her question.

The sound of wood scraping against stone wakes her just before full light as Quickbeam strides about his home. A tree Isena doesn’t remember seeing the night before shades the entry and she squints at it. As if it feels her regard, its branches shake. _One of the awake ones? The huorns_? She waves at it hesitantly.

“I have tasks I, too, must be about,” Quickbeam says, startling her from her staring match. “But first, there are questions I would ask of you, little one.”

Fair, even if she is itching to be on her way. She sits and slowly begins to stretch. “What do you want to know?”

They talk for two hours about Isena and Isedd’s purpose in Wildermore and Núrzum and the interference of the White Hand. Isena grates at the whole delay, but she does learn an entish curse or two. She can’t pronounce them, to her disappointment. She is at least reasonably certain by the end of it that the Wizard had not actually been Saruman in disguise, based on Quickbeam’s reaction to even the mention of the Wizard of Orthanc.

“I have business for Fangorn,” Quickbeam says, approaching the huorn outside. Isena follows. “I would know more of what is happening in the north, however.” Quickbeam stoops and picks Isena up to deposit her among the sturdy branches of the huorn, ignoring her yelp of surprise.

“Two days for me would be far longer for you, and the forest is not so safe for those of your size as we might wish. The two of you together might see more and pass more safely, or so I hope.” He gestures with a broad hand to the huorn. “My young friend here will keep you safe, so long as you stay nearby.”

Isena nods along. _Sure. I will ride a walking tree through miles of forest to pick a fight with a giant_. “Do they have a name?”

“ _Hmmm_ not one you could say, I think.” The huorn shudders and Isena’s hands clench tight on its branches. “Good luck, little one.” Quickbeam strides into the forest, swallowed by shadows in seconds.

Isena looks down at the huorn. They do not move. _I wish Isedd was here. He_ might _have a chance of understanding them_. “How- are we going now? Do you have something to take care of first?” The huorn shivers as if in a breeze and then jolts. Isena grabs the branches again and the huorn jolts again, and then again. _They’re walking_ , Isena realizes. She tries to wedge herself into a fork in the sturdiest branches nearest her and holds on as tightly as she can as they pass into the shadows of the heart of Fangorn.

Despite the slowness of the huorn’s ‘foot’steps, the forest passes with surprising speed. The huorn, of course, is not much for conversation, which leaves Isena with no company but her thoughts. She worries at the lingering problem of Núrzum but comes up with nothing useful. Fire seems the natural deterrent to ice, but the giant’s size alone makes that an impractical solution. She has plenty of worry to spare for the others, too; Cyneberg had gone alone towards Byre Tor, and Isena is still not sure of the wisdom in separating from her. _Though, considering where I’ve ended up_ … She hopes Isedd and the others made it to Dunfast. 

Isena laughs to herself. The sound is a little bitter. Isedd will be insufferable and hover for days after she gets back.

She will deserve it, though.

He had accused her of taking the first good excuse she could find to come back, before they had agreed to leave Bree. She had denied it, but Isedd wasn’t entirely off and they both knew it. She _had_ jumped at the idea of seeing the rest of her family again, despite the likelihood that they really had all died in the raid. In her own turn she had accused her brother of being too afraid to come back- and that wasn’t all wrong either. _Not worth losing what family we have left_ , he had said that first night she had brought it up. Quickbeam’s secondhand account said she had been left for dead, but she knows Isedd wouldn’t have left her if he had any choice or hope. She knows what this will do to him, too, and the bite of it hasn’t left her mind for more than a few moments at a time. In pain is better than dead though, for both of them. She hadn’t seen a better choice in the moment, and she would do it again in a heartbeat.

She has to get back, though. They had been shorthanded already, and every speck of help they can be could make the difference.

A part of her that is either more practical or more cynical laughs at her. It sounds vaguely like Isedd, poking pointed fun at her for thinking her return will do so much to change the fate of things, for thinking herself so important to the fight. _Are you chasing a story, like those Téorwald loved to recite_? she asks herself. _Of course not_ , she thinks back on reflex. _I know it won’t be like that_ … She thinks of Isedd after their escape, all their rough edges that aren’t all smoothed away even now. No, she doesn’t expect a storied ending for them. (But maybe if she’s wrong... maybe that makes everything they’ve already been through meaningful, gives a structure to the story instead of just chance and pain without purpose.)

Isena shakes herself. It must be afternoon by now, though beneath the trees it’s been the same green-tinted shadows since the sun rose. _By Eorl, I need someone to talk to_. The huorn plods on.

“Have you ever come this way before?” she asks when she can stand the silence no longer. The huorn doesn’t answer. “I know I have no better idea of where I’m going than generally northwards, so I’m counting on you here.” She talks off and on for most of the afternoon. The huorn shakes its branches at her from time to time, but it’s the most she gets in response until she is forced to ask for a stop.

“Or at the very least just let me down and I’ll catch up in a few minutes.” She doesn’t think huorns have a digestive system in the manner of beasts or Men. She isn’t sure about the ents.

“Do you sleep?” she asks once they are on their way again. “Quickbeam mentioned ents that get sleepy and tree-ish, but do you have a time of day you start to get tired and stop to rest for the night?” The branches rustle in a way she takes as inquisitive. “Yeah, I do. I’ll need to tie myself to your branches or something later if you really don’t sleep.” Wood creaks more aggressively. “Wait what are you-” Branches reach out and twine around her, pulling her closer to the trunk of the tree and up into something like a nest. A thinner limb stretches around her middle, holding her securely. "No hang on- I didn't mean- I meant _later_ , once it's dark." The huorn shivers once and settles, Isena still held inescapably against the trunk. She sighs and drinks from the waterskin she had filled in Quickbeam’s grotto. She still doesn’t have an appetite, despite not having eaten for two days at least, and she’s starting to worry. 

She sleeps eventually, though she is woken in darkness by the skittering of a multitude of large feet. She stirs, but the huorn tightens its grip on her and stands dead still. “What is it?” Isena whispers. The huorn’s branches don’t so much as shift. Isena draws her spear fragment and pulls against the huorn’s hold. Between the nighttime sky and the shadows of the forest, she can see nothing. She can only listen to all of the feet and wonder what is lurking beyond her sight. There is a chittering somewhere nearby. Insects? The huorn shifts just enough to make a sound and the chittering rises in pitch. The huorn shudders. Isena pats its bark and hopes it’s comforting.

A ray of starlight breaks through the trees as clouds shift, glinting off eyes. There are so many eyes. Spiders. _Ugly_ spiders. Very large ugly spiders. Isena takes a rushed look at their surroundings. Thick webbing like old drapery covers the trees before them and to their left. The trees are thick to their right. _Our only path is back the way we came_. She glances back. At least one set of eyes behind them, and she loses sight of it as the starlight vanishes. “Back up,” she hisses to the huorn. “Before they surround us.” The sound of the spiders surges again and the huorn lurches backwards. Isena crouches on her branch as best she can, spear in hand. 

Branches above them pull back, letting dim light shine on their path. There are quite a few spiders in the way. The huorn is charging now, so Isena abandons her quiet and swats at it until it releases her, reluctantly as it seems. She drops to the ground.

“Keep going!” she calls to the huorn. “I’m right beside you.” Without her spear, she has no range at all. She keeps pace with the huorn, stabbing for any eyes that come too close. She lands a hit on one or two, but most of them stay well out of the huorn’s path as they charge back out of the silken hold. The huorn slows too soon, though, and Isena shouts it on while she circles around to guard the rear. The largest spiders have fallen back, but the lighter ones still in pursuit are still too big for comfort. One of them leaps for the huorn and Isena catches it on the underside with the point of the spear. Metal crunches through carapace and Isena pushes forward and down, away from the huorn. Instead of opening a rent in the spider’s gut, the spear catches on something and the thing is instead _launched_ with all the strength of Isena’s arm, flung back into one of its fellows, screaming in whatever way spiders scream.

“These things _jump?!_ ” she growls, chasing after the huorn as the last of the spiders fall back, chittering angrily at their escaping prey. “That’s just not fair.” They continue on for several minutes, Isena practically sprinting to keep up with the huorn. They don’t stop until the spiders are completely hidden. Isena skids to a stop, panting, when the huorn finally halts and shakes angrily in the direction of the spiders. “Are you alright?” Isena asks. It shakes once more, dismissive, if Isena is reading them right. “If you say so.” She waves upwards, where the tree boughs are coming back together, enclosing them in darkness once more. “Was that you?” An affirmative rustle. Isena wonders if she’s imagining the answers entirely. “It’s a great trick.” She leans against the huorn’s trunk and has just enough time to register the branches wrapping around her again before she is deposited back in the nest-like hollow where she had been sleeping. The huorn shakes, apparently pleased with itself. “Alright, fine. Just don’t walk through any more spider dens.”

They don’t, to Isena’s relief (and, she suspects, the huorn’s). She gets a little more sleep, but it takes her a long while to come down after the spiders. They are more careful after that, but by the time the next evening begins to creep in, there is a familiar chill in the air and drifts of snow that grow larger the farther they trek. The huorn shivers and Isena rubs at her arms. “We’re close,” she says grimly.

The huorn stops several times as the sun begins to set. Isena can’t discern the reasoning and has yet to recognize any landmarks. The huorn grows restless, scuttling through the snow and shaking its branches at nearby trees in agitation. 

They come at last upon a stretch of jagged pillars of ice and the huorn stops short. _And now we’re here_. Isena explains what little she actually knows to the huorn as it paces along the length of the ice and the half-cut road beyond. “If you have your own investigation to pursue, I can find my way back from here.” The huorn shakes and finds an open space to cross the road. Isena gazes down the roadway. It’s empty, and oddly quiet. Isena lowers her voice. “Let me down.” Branches shift and her feet have nearly touched the ground when something between a horn and a roar echoes through the frozen wood. The huorn goes stock still, every branch at attention. “What-” The sound comes again and all around the wood creaks. The huorn takes off deeper into the Balewood at speed, Isena still dangling a foot above the snow. “Put me down!” The woods are moving all around them, and Isena can see other trees moving like the huorn, all in the same direction but none of them half as fast. “I have to go the other direction!” Isena protests. “Just let me down!” She is instead drawn back towards the huorn’s heart and all her struggles are useless.

It doesn’t release Isena for two hours at least, caught up in a veritable stampede of trees. They can’t be moving very quickly to watch, but it feels much faster as the ice-wind rushes past. They don’t slow until the forest opens up into a wide basin that may once have contained a flowing stream but is now no more than a sheet of snow and ice. Isena hears voices.

“Let me down,” she hisses at the huorn again. “There are people over there.” They slow, the huorn turning towards the voices. “Just put me down!” The huorn lurches towards the voices and slowly lets Isena down several yards away, setting her down almost apologetically. Isena ignores it and walks towards the voices.

“-to the cave for now while Corudan tries to- who goes there?”

Isena steps around a tree trunk, hands up. “A curious friend. Who are you?”

Two people stand in the snow, both of them decidedly not from Byre Tor or anywhere else nearby. One looks to be a woodsman- a Ranger, Isena amends, catching the glint of a star-shaped pin like Reniolind’s. The other is an elf, holding up a rock as if to use it as a weapon instead of the knife at her side. They stare hard at her and Isena realizes she must look a mess. She tries to comb back her hair and promptly catches her fingers in a nest of tangles.

“My name is Isena,” she offers. 

“Esterín,” the elf says, slowly relaxing. “What are you doing here?”

Isena laughs. “I could ask you the same. I think you may be farther from home than I.” The Ranger snorts.

“She has a point there.” Esterín elbows him. “I’m Braigiar.”

The huorn rustles their branches behind Isena and Esterín and Braigiar jump. Isena waves to them. “This is my friend whose name I can’t pronounce. They have a task of their own, but I’m here to fight Núrzum.”

“We have a common goal, then,” Esterín says. She gestures back towards the basin. “We managed to wake the ent here. I hope it is enough to fight the giant.” The huorn shakes its branches excitedly and inches away.

“Your friend seems to be getting impatient,” Braigiar notes.

“They probably want to talk to the ent,” Isena says. It inches farther away, waving its branches at Isena. “Alright, I’m coming.” She turns back to Esterín and Braigiar. “This has been a strange but not unpleasant meeting. Good luck in your own quests.”

“And you in yours,” Esterín says. Isena waves and chases after the huorn. She can hear the other two moving away from her in the snow for no more than a heartbeat.

Isena catches up to the huorn near the center of the basin, trembling excitedly before a semi-circle of ents surrounding one even more weathered and snow-covered than they. There seems to be conversation, but it's nothing she can understand, so she stands close to the huorn and waits. The edges of the forest draw in, other huorns edging closer and closer as the ents speak.

At last the ents take notice of them. Isena is suddenly held beneath the gazes of half a dozen ancient creatures and for the first time in a very long time she feels small. Not even Núrzum’s immensity or the piercing terror of the Ringwraiths have this impossible age. It takes all her strength not to shrink away.

“ _Hmmm_ ,” one of them says. “This huorn is not one of ours. And you are surely not one of ours.” The huorn shakes and Isena feels a push at her back.

“Ah,” another ent says. “You are the one I gave into Quickbeam’s care. It is good to see you growing so well already.”

“I-” Growing? _Does he mean that literally or is it some entish figure of speech_? “I suppose I am. Does that make you Strongroot?”

“Indeed.” He sounds pleased.

“Thank you for saving my life.”

“You are most welcome, little one.” Strongroot turns to the first ent. “You see, Barallas, we gain nothing by planting ourselves and not acting. These Men and elves have made more progress by accident against the giant than we have all this time.”

“Peace, Strongroot,” Barallas rumbles. “The consequences of our choices have thoroughly rebuked me.” He turns to the elder ent at the center of their ring. “And they have done what we could not, or did not think to do. Leaflock, it is good to see you awake once more.” More tree-ish sounds pass between them and Isena leans against the huorn.

It takes some insistence on her part, and an impassioned defense she cannot understand from the huorn, but the ents finally tell her their plan. Barallas and the younger ents will lay waste to the White Hand’s camp deep in the Balewood, built atop the hewn roots of an ancient huorn. The one beside Isena quivers as Mossbeard tells them of Brúndoron’s fate, twisted and bound to Núrzum and his terrible icy stone. _We had thought rope, but this is much worse_. Leaflock will lead the huorns of the forest against Núrzum himself.

“I would not try to leave the forest tonight,” Barallas says when Isena offers to bring word to the humans of Wildermore and, perhaps, get their help. “The huorns have been roused to war and would not care for the subtleties of your allegiance.”

“I can’t just wait here for them to pass,” she objects. Her huorn pokes at her.

“March with them, then,” Barallas says. “Your friend is willing to carry you.”

Isena looks at the huorn. “Are you sure?” The branches shake in affirmation.

“I see why Quickbeam so enjoys your company,” Barallas says to the huorn. Isena can’t tell if the words are amused or exasperated. “Both of you take care. I would not wish to explain your losses to either Quickbeam or Strongroot.” Isena laughs.

“I always do.”

Within an hour, the Balewood marches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there _should_ be two more chapters of this one, and following that a part 2 story that takes i&i out of wildermore up to. probably the end of the war of the ring. emphasis on the 'should' though, bc planning is like that and i'm easily distracted


	13. lakeshore tour (isedd)

They don’t have a plan. They have, at best, a half-formed idea that the sound of Thrymm’s horn will discomfit the giant and no idea at all where Núrzum actually is.

Isedd sighs into his hands and stares out from the watchtower of Lornsettle. The Isingmere is a brilliant blue-white, reflecting the sun and hiding the peaks above the far shore in its glare. If he squints, he imagines he can just make out the shadow of distant trees. 

Cyneberg and Thrymm want to go on the offensive. It's one part hope renewed and one part desperation- there will be no safety here until Núrzum is gone, and if this keeps up much longer they will have no strength left to fight him. Isedd is hardly a strategist the way Isena was ( _is_ ), but even he will admit that without something more than this they don’t stand a chance.

Shoes scuff on wood as Thrymm joins Isedd in the tower, leaning against the wooden beams that hold the roof up. Isedd shuffles to the side to make space for him and he smiles amiably.

“Anything of note to see up here?” he asks. Isedd shakes his head.

“Just the snow today.” They stand in silence for perhaps ten minutes before Thrymm speaks again.

“I wanted to thank you for all of your help. You were invaluable as errand-riders before the assault on Scylfig and, to hear Cyneberg tell it, you did more than any one person’s share of keeping Forlaw functional afterwards.” He grins. “I think nearly half my family owes you their life by now.” 

“Hardly.” And more than one he hadn’t been able to save. “We just lent a hand where we could. And we could hardly move on, with the passes all blockaded.”

Thrymm gives him a sidelong look. “I think you would have stayed anyway.”

He would have. Isena would have taken some convincing, but she wouldn’t have left Isedd to any of this on his own. “Maybe. We still had another task, though.”

“Yes, your message from Harding.” Thrymm taps his fingers against the wood. “No coincidence there, these attacks from all sides.” He sighs. It’s a tired sound. “But I’m getting ahead of myself. One problem at a time.” He claps a large hand to Isedd’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about your sister.” Isedd only nods and soon after Thrymm leaves him to resume his contemplation of the frozen lake.

 _She could still be alive. You know it_. But is it hope that borders on self-delusion or faith or reason that urges him to believe it? He can’t tell, not from the inside. He returns to the warmth of the hall below.

Isedd finds a small lump of wood from near the fires and digs at it with his small knife to keep himself busy while they talk themselves in circles again. The simple truth of it is that their mission to find more information had turned up rather little, and little of it useful. The snow does follow the stone, and Núrzum is able to exert at least some control over it. The stone seems to be bound to him somehow- in a literal sense. Isedd frowns and deepens a score in the wood.

“If it is rope that holds the stone to him, it can’t be in good shape, not unless it’s enchanted or regularly replaced,” he murmurs, setting the wood- now carved in a decent likeness of the giant- on the table between them. 

“Do you think that will break whatever hold he has over it?” Thrymm asks. Isedd shrugs.

“You know as much as I do. We have no way of knowing.”

“True enough, I suppose.” Thrymm grimaces. “Our plan then consists of one, distracting him with the horn, and two, dislodging the stone. How do we go about doing that?”

“I might be able to make the shot,” Cyneberg says. “I am no bowmaster, though, and if the winds are anywhere as strong as they were at the gates here, it would be next to impossible.”

“If I was close enough, I could burn it,” Isedd puts in. “But I would have to be _very_ close, and even then I would face the same challenges as an archer.” They talk themselves in another circle. Isedd glances at Gárwig, who has been largely silent since they began repeating themselves. “Do we have any siege weaponry?” It’s a stretch, but if they do… A ballista would be wonderful.

“Why would we?” Gárwig says, his voice tired. Whatever joy Thrymm’s return had brought him has been slowly sapped by the mounting impossibility of their situation. “Even Forlaw is no fortress, and there is no one against whom to use them.”

“What about the orcs? Could we steal some from them?”

“If we had the riders to take Fushaum-dorám, we wouldn’t be sitting here considering attacking Núrzum with half a dozen people.” 

“And we have not the time to build our own.”

Isedd rests his head in his hands. “Back to the beginning, then. Could we trip him?”

They really are desperate. They spend nearly an hour discussing it before deciding that they would more than likely be unable to find anywhere to anchor a rope or chain that could withstand Núrzum’s immense strength.

They end the day more frustrated than they had begun, snapping at each other and still with nothing to show for it. Isedd is still staying with Thrymm and Cyneberg and quite honestly is rather shocked that they haven’t asked him for some sort of privacy. He knows he won’t want an audience when he finally speaks with Isena.

_When? You believe she’s alive then, truly?_

_Apparently_.

He sleeps little that night. He hasn’t since leaving the Balewood, really, beyond a few hours here and there that were closer to exhaustion-driven collapse than sleep. He dreams of chasing a familiar, ever-retreating voice through dark, snowy woods and wakes chilled and unrested.

“Are you alright, Isedd?” Thrymm asks, looking at him too closely. He shrugs.

“Just tired.” He thinks he sees something like suspicion in Cyneberg’s eyes but he ignores it, following them back to Lornsettle.

There is nothing new by midmorning, and at last Isedd takes a deep breath and stands.

“I’m sorry. I can’t stay for this. I have to go find my sister.”

“You’re leaving?” Thrymm seems surprised more than anything. Cyneberg does not. Isedd nods.

Gárwig’s face is creased in anger, though. “You choose _now_ , so close to the end, to abandon the fight?” Isedd grits his teeth. “I had thought you made of sterner stuff than that.” Cyneberg’s quiet admonition goes unnoticed.

“Be that as it may,” Isedd says in the most even tone he can, “I am not sworn to your service, Reeve, and if my sister still lives, I _will_ find her. You have my apologies and my thanks, though I doubt we have seen the last of each other.” He turns on his heel and leaves the hall before he can snap. He understands Gárwig’s anger, and it is fairly earned, but his own is hanging by a very thin thread and nothing good will come out of his mouth if he stays.

“Isedd!” Someone follows him from the hall. He walks faster, but Cyneberg catches him before he crosses into Forlaw proper and swings him around to face her.

“Cynberg, I’m not-”

“I know.” Isedd stares at her and she sighs. “I understand. I did the same for Thrymm not a week past.” She sets her hands on his shoulders. “You truly believe she’s alive?”

"I do."

“Then good luck, and take care of yourself. I don’t think we could stand to lose you, too.” She leaves him standing motionless and returns to Lornsettle. Isedd stays there until a gust of wind sets him shivering and he hurries off to the stables.

The air seems colder as he rides along the lakeshore in the afternoon. He flexes his hands on Smelly’s reins. They are stiff for lack of movement and the frostbitten skin where he had touched the ice spire aches. He presses on.

He is just past halfway to Dunfast when a familiar call draws his attention to the sky. He nearly dares to hope.

“Matwyn!” The eagle swoops down to alight on the saddlebow, ignoring Smelly’s irritable twitch. Isedd smooths her wind-rustled feathers. “Are you alright? What happened? Did you… did you find her?” Matwyn fluffs herself in irritation and Isedd clamps his mouth shut.

 _I am well, but I found nothing of your sister. For good or for ill_. Isedd clenches his fists and looks away. _There is more_ …

There is a lot more. Matwyn had found the uruk Isena had tackled from the cliff, crushed flat by something that had since moved on. Isena was nowhere to be found. Matwyn had continued to search beneath the trees, finally landing for a rest on the branch of one surprisingly talkative tree. Matwyn calls him Mossbeard and details a wandering quest through the forest with him, learning some of what Saruman and his forces had done to the trees there.

_‘The forest will be woken once the others hear of this,’ he said. He told me I should return before the huorns marched, if I wished to see what became of the humans after all was done._

“That’s ominous,” Isedd mutters.

_Maybe less so than you think. They want to end the threat Núrzum poses. You and your friends will be fine so long as you stay out of their way._

“Out of their-” his stomach drops. “When will they march?”

 _By tomorrow, if they have not begun already_.

Isedd curses and turns Smelly. “Leitha, follow us as best you can. We have to get back to Forlaw now.”

 _What is it_? Matwyn flaps to keep her seat as Smelly takes off at speed back the way they came.

“Cyneberg and Thrymm have been planning to attack Núrzum for days. The trees will not care for their allegiance though, will they?”

 _No. Especially not with that horn_.

Isedd curses again and ducks close to Smelly’s neck. _Please don’t let them have left yet_. They may not have- they were still trying to patch together something that looked like a plan. There may still be time.

It had taken the better part of the day to come this far, and it will be dark hours before they could hope to reach Forlaw. Smelly charges on faithfully until he can go no further and it is too dark to see the road.

“We can’t be more than a few hours away…”

 _Isedd, I can’t go further like this_.

Isedd lays a contrite hand against Smelly’s neck. They had outpaced Leitha hours ago. “I know. I’m sorry.” He dismounts and finds a large boulder that is all the shelter to be had on these plains. Smelly snorts in relief and sleeps as soon as he is able. Isedd can’t sleep at all, trying his hardest not to panic or to imagine Thrymm and Cyneberg and any number of the friends they have made here running headlong into an enraged, mobile forest. Leitha trots in some time later, snorting at them both.

“Oh hush,” Isedd mutters.

It can only barely be called dawn by the time Isedd is in the saddle again. Smelly is faltering by the time the gates of Forlaw come into view, but he gives one last push. “Thank you,” Isedd whispers fervently, calling for the first man he recognizes at the stables before sprinting for Thrymm’s home. No one answers his frantic knocking. He tries the door and finds it locked. Cursing, he turns and runs for Lornsettle. His foot slips on an icy patch and his elbow collides painfully with the ground but he gets up and keeps running.

Half a dozen confused voices greet him as he bursts into the hall, panting and probably looking exactly like someone who has been riding all-out with dire news.

“Where are Thrymm and Cyneberg?” They aren’t here. There is no sign of Gárwig, either, though Edsig sits in his father’s place. _What is he doing up and about already_? The thought is lost almost immediately. 

“They rode out not an hour ago.”

“We had a report just this morning that Núrzum was sighted along the shore of the Isingmere, just past Fiskworth.”

“Grandfather went with them.”

“What has happened?”

Isedd stares at them, wide-eyed, for several seconds. He hasn’t even caught his breath. He spins, cursing some more, and runs back out the door, ignoring everyone calling his name behind him.

Smelly truly isn’t in a state to ride again, but Leitha has once again caught up and she tosses her head at Isedd as he skids into the stables.

 _You are ridiculous. I will go this time_.

“Fine.” He has no time at all to argue the point. He pulls himself into Leitha’s saddle and spares a moment to wonder how sore he will be after this. “They have an hour on us already.”

 _Let’s go_.

Matwyn glides overhead as Leitha charges into the road. Leitha may not have Smelly’s speed, but even if she did this would be a near chase. Isedd curses the whole situation as they ride. _Should I have stayed? No, we never would have heard Matwyn’s news in time. We may still not be in time_. And he still doesn’t know what has become of Isena. Matwyn hadn’t even found a body.

The winds pick up, screaming down from the peaks above and cutting in from the lake, slowing even Leitha and forcing Matwyn to land and hide against Isedd’s chest. _At least we know we’re getting close_.

The sound of a horn echoes against stone as they approach the northern shore. _Too late_! But maybe he can still warn them out of the trees’ path. Leitha plows onwards until they reach a high-walled canyon whose floor slopes up towards the mountains. Three familiar horses stand near a narrow crack in the side of the canyon. Isedd leaps from Leitha’s back and shoves his way through the crevasse. Thrymm will have had an unpleasant time getting through here. Isedd isn’t having a good time of it himself. He squeezes through the last stretch of the passage and takes in the flat, open space beyond.

The winds are worse at the center of it all. If Núrzum does indeed have the power to calm them, he is not making use of it now. Thrymm is off to Isedd’s right, his horn raised to lips and one hand holding his ribs. Cyneberg stands to the left, a heavy bow in hand. Gárwig is only a few feet from Isedd, calling instructions to Thrymm and Cyneberg. He turns at Isedd’s shout.

“What are you doing here?” 

“The trees-” Isedd gasps out as the ice wind burns his face. Núrzum is in the center of the snowfield, the stone lashed to his back practically glowing in the early morning light. 

“What trees?” Gárwig demands. There are none in sight.

“The Balewood has been roused. Stay out of its way.” Gárwig just stares at him. “There isn’t time-” Isedd says desperately. He can’t even say what he wants the reeve to do. He doesn’t know where the trees Matwyn told him about are or when they will arrive or if they will even know to come _here_ , to this field bound by cliffs and hills and the ice-bound lake. _I wasn’t sure I would even make it here._

Cyneberg’s bowstring thrums. She has run nearly to Núrzum’s feet while he turned to bellow at Thrymm and his horn, loosing straight into the roots that bind the stone to the giant. Even the heaviest arrows will do little against the roots of the ancient oak, but they had been working on the assumption that it was rope. _What about fire_? Isedd dashes into the field as Thrymm blows the horn again, old words on his lips. A starburst of flame splashes against the wood, but it doesn’t so much as draw Núrzum’s gaze. Isedd grits his teeth and backs away.

The horn sounds again and the giant stomps towards Thrymm. Isedd shouts the words again without thinking and an arc of flame two feet high shoots away from Isedd, melting a path through the snow between Núrzum and Thrymm. _That’s new_. The fire burns itself out after only a few seconds, but Núrzum stops short- and then he turns on Isedd.

“A fledgling wizard, are you?” He steps forward and Isedd backs up until he collides with the stone wall. “I have had more than enough dealings with Wizards.” Thrymm’s horn blasts and Núrzum flinches, but he does not turn away from Isedd. Isedd presses back into the rough stone, heart pounding loud enough to drown all else out. Núrzum comes closer and the winds die around him. “Ah, I recognize you. You are quieter than the other two red-headed ones, but no less troublesome.” Thrymm’s horn sounds again- and this time it is answered by a furious bellow from the higher slopes. Isedd looks. So does Núrzum.

The slopes are covered in trees that had not been there before. At their head strides one that looks almost like a more dignified version of the wood-trolls that had harried them through the Balewood. 

“Another ent to shatter,” Núrzum rumbles. He turns away from Isedd and stomps towards the trees, shouting a challenge.

Isedd’s knees give out and he falls straight to sit in the snow, struggling for a full breath. Gárwig appears at his side, clasping his shoulder until Isedd can meet his eyes and manage a nod. Cyneberg arrives just moments later, an arrow still on her bowstring.

“Isedd, what are you- are you alright?”

“Never been better,” he says through shallow breaths. Thrymm’s horn echoes against stone again and he can feel himself tense. “Thrymm- get Thrymm away from the trees. Stop blowing the horn. Stay out of their way.” Cyneberg nods once, clearly wanting to ask for details, and runs off.

The huorns press further into the open field, spreading out to surround the giant. Isedd uses the wall behind him to pull himself up, watching as Núrzum is engulfed by tree branches until he is visible only as a bluish shadow amid the brown. Cyneberg returns to Isedd and Gárwig with Thrymm in tow and they stand together to watch.

One huorn turns towards them and they all flinch back as it comes closer, edging towards the crack in the stone that is now their only escape. It stops before reaching them, though, and a very human-shaped figure drops from its branches. Isedd makes a tiny, wounded sound and nearly falls to his knees again. He stumbles closer and all but throws himself at her.

“ _Isena-_ ”

“Isedd!” She catches him easily, this close. He laughs, and it turns into a sob, and he reaches out and latches on to her, clinging as if he can keep her here by strength alone. He buries his face against her shoulder and sobs until he can barely breathe because his stupid, indestructible, beloved little sister has come back to him.

“Shh. It’s alright. I’m alright, Isedd. Look-” She tries to pull away but Isedd only tightens his deathgrip on her shoulders.

“Don’t-” He tries valiantly to control his breathing. “Don’t do that again. Please.”

“I wasn’t exactly trying to do it that time, you know.” Her voice is warm and her arms are curled tight around him and Isedd takes whatever time is being afforded him to just try to believe it.

Her breath catches and she drags them both to the ground, shouting the others down beside them. The huorn shuffles closer to them and Isedd risks a glance past it into the field. The trees have spread out in a wide ring and Núrzum is nowhere in sight. The one that had led the trees here is still visible, and as Isedd watches he raises a massive foot and brings it down on something bright glinting blue. Cold wind blasts outwards and he can feel Isena’s grip tighten around him. Isedd closes his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> isedd really just spends half this chapter swearing at everything huh lol


	14. thaws (isena)

The gale tears outward as Leaflock crushes the stone torn from Núrzum's back, and even sheltered by the huorn the wind cuts through Isena’s cloak and leaves her skin numb and tingling. She holds tight to Isedd as his fingers dig claw-like into her shoulders until it is past. They look up together.

The bark of the huorn that had been faced towards the center of the field is frosted over from root to branch. It shivers and the worst of it flakes away, but much of it is still dusted in white. Leaflock straightens, unbalanced but somehow having kept his feet, and turns back to the slopes.

“Is that… it?” Thrymm says, standing from where he has been shielding his uncle in the huorn’s shadow. Isena wonders when he got back. He takes a step towards Leaflock and his herd, but Quickbeam’s huorn shuffles into his path. Thrymm eyes it warily, a hand straying to his weapon. Isena jumps up- or tries to, at least. It’s made a touch more difficult with Isedd still clinging to her.

“It is. Or it should be, at least.” She shoots a glance at the huorn, who bobs its crown as if nodding. “I think it may be best if we leave Leaflock and his huorns to their own devices. They aren’t terribly fond of us, generally speaking. Their help today wasn’t for our sake.” Thrymm reluctantly steps back.

“What about this one?” Gárwig asks, nodding to the huorn beside them.

“They’re my friend,” Isena says. “But they’re not… from this neck of the woods.” Cyneberg and Thrymm at least seem to find that amusing. Gárwig doesn’t look as impressed. “It’s a long story.” She’s sure theirs will be, too.

Isena bids farewell to the huorn. “I hope we’ll see each other again some day,” she says, smiling up at it. “And thank you for everything.” It shakes its branches one last time in farewell and follows after Leaflock’s herd. The humans squeeze themselves back through the crack in the stone to the horses. Leitha snorts and nearly knocks Isena flat with her head and Matwyn trills a happy greeting. “It’s good to see you, too.” She looks around. “Where’s Smelly?” Leitha snorts and nudges at Isedd.

“He’s still in Forlaw,” Isedd says. To say he sounds tired would be an understatement. _Half dead_ , while less kind, is perhaps more accurate. Isena is hardly presentable herself, but she at least looks like she slept sometime in the past week. Isedd leans against Leitha, eyes closed, and Isena shoots a glance at Cyneberg who only shrugs, face creased with concern.

“We should go,” Thrymm says, looking at Gárwig, who looks worn thin himself. Isena wonders why the Reeve came to this fight to begin with.

They make it to Scylfig by noon. They spend the early afternoon in the hall trading accounts of the past week while Isena inhales any food set in front of her. She had finished the last of the ent-draught from Quickbeam’s home that morning and at last found herself with an appetite for solid food. Alfreth is here with Cyneberg’s steward and he grins to see Isena. He and Hunwald have far more mundane news to share. It means far more to Cyneberg than to Isena, so she tunes it out in favor of pulling out the broken half of her spear.

“I’m sorry,” she says to Isedd with a grimace. “I don’t even know where the other half ended up.” Isedd reaches for his bag and withdraws a length of wood.

“I found it at the top of the cliff after the fight,” he says quietly. He has hardly said anything since they left the field, even when prompted. He looks exhausted, and Isena hopes by all the lords of the Mark that it is no more than that.

They return to Forlaw in the evening and are welcomed to Lornsettle with cheers and cries of relief. The Reeve’s family begs them for the story and Thrymm raises his hands to calm them and laughs. He glances at Isena, picking hopelessly at her matted hair, and motions her closer.

“I can keep them entertained for awhile if you and your brother want to make yourselves presentable,” he says.

“I would love nothing more,” Isena says fervently. Thrymm grins at her and wades into his assorted cousins, cousins-in-law, cousins of varying degrees of remove, and other excited hall-goers while Isena makes her escape with Isedd in tow.

Cyneberg follows them back to Thrymm’s house and helps them settle before returning to Lornsettle. Isena sits cross-legged before the fire and tries to work a sturdy comb through the mess of her hair. Half an hour later, the comb snapped and all her work practically unnoticeable, she resorts to a knife.

“I hate having it this short,” she grumbles to herself, cleaning up the mess of copper hair she’s managed to make. It will be miserable to have her neck so exposed to the cold air. 

“Looks weird on you,” Isedd agrees from nearby. Isena squints at him.

“Have you moved at all since we got here?” He shrugs. “You should at least put on some dry socks.” He hasn’t even removed his boots. He shrugs again. Isena lowers her hands to her lap. “Isedd, are you alright?”

He laughs hollowly. “I thought you were dead for a week. I-” he shakes his head and sighs. “I’m tired.”

“Get some sleep. After you put on dry socks.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Once I no longer smell like all the worst parts of a forest, I am going to make something to eat.” She points a threatening finger at Isedd. “And then you are going to eat it.” 

“You sound like Alse.” Isena throws a (dry) pair of socks at him. He does clean himself up, however slowly, and sits at Thrymm’s table with the blankest expression Isena has ever seen on his face. He refuses every time she tries to convince him to lay down, and eventually she gives up and starts talking while she raids Thrymm’s pantry again.

Thrymm and Cyneberg return in the middle of it, Isena detailing her opinions on various methods of crust-making while fish from the lake sizzle in a pan.

“Where did you find…” Thrymm trails off, bewildered.

“Matwyn,” Isena says, barely breaking the flow of her speech. “I know Tam swears by her three-fold method, but honestly, you only need to do it twice at most. Thrymm, you need some fresh eggs; these ones have nearly gone bad.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” he mutters.

“I hope you’re hungry, or have people you can dump the extra on, because I think I made too much food.”

“I’m starting to think that’s the only amount you make,” Cyneberg laughs. Isena shrugs.

“Maybe.”

Isedd finally falls asleep beside her that night as they sit with Thrymm and Cyneberg beside the fire, head on her shoulder and one hand tight in hers even in sleep. 

“I have hardly seen him sleep these last three days,” Thrymm says. Even hushed, his voice rumbles through the room. “Who knows how much he slept before that.”

“Not much, I’m sure,” Isena sighs. Not knowing him. “What happened after I fell? He hasn’t said much.”

“I don’t know much beyond that he got the group you were defending safely to Dunfast and later found a cave of survivors above Byre Tor,” Cyneberg says. “He found me in Grimnesberg after that, and the next day we found Thrymm.” Much of the rest of the story Isena had heard earlier. Better answers will have to wait for tomorrow, it seems.

“He really just stood up and left yesterday?” she says. She can feel the frown on her face. 

“He left to find you,” Cyneberg says. Isena hears a hint of reproach in her voice. “You can’t fault him for that.” Isena raises a placating hand.

“I don’t.” She does, at least a little. “It’s just… you were ready to fight. And he left.” And in his absence, the aging Reeve had gone into battle.

“He stayed as long as he could,” Cyneberg says, insistent. “As I did myself.” She says it as if Isena had not also judged her for chasing a wisp of a hope instead of staying to fight or to tend to her people. Isena just shrugs and lets it drop. This isn’t the night for that. Cyneberg retreats to the upper floor to stoke the fire in the room she and Thrymm will sleep in and Isena wrestles Isedd over to the pallets they have been using while staying here. He twitches when she withdraws her hand, but his exhaustion seems to outweigh all else.

“He and Cyneberg are very much alike,” Thrymm says quietly. He’s still sitting by the fire, rubbing absently at ribs that must still ache. 

“He should have stayed,” Isena says. 

“You would have,” Thrymm says. Isena isn’t sure if it’s judgement or not. “As I would likely have stayed if Cyneberg had been the one lost in the peaks.” He shifts in his seat. “He came back, though, and still without knowing your fate. He isn’t the kind to put something so abstract as duty before those he cares for.” Isena frowns. 

_Isn’t he? He tries to stop and solve every problem we come across_. But then, he always has _cared_. For all Isena is the smoother talker, it’s always been him who cared enough to stop. _I would have carried straight through to Stangard to deliver our news if he hadn’t gotten us entangled with the fishermen_.

Thrymm sighs. “Without people like them, there would be far fewer people like us left standing, I think.” He rises. “Goodnight, Isena.”

“Goodnight.” She spends another hour at least staring into the fireplace. She finally acknowledges the growing tiredness in her limbs and the throb that threatens to become a headache, but she still doesn’t move. It doesn’t quite feel real. Nothing since the fall has made any sort of sense. She didn’t think cutting her hair would make such a difference, but when she catches a glimpse of her reflection she hardly recognizes herself. She’s eye-to-eye with Isedd now, too. That shouldn’t be the case, even if he is slouching in exhaustion.

She shakes her head sharply. _You’re just tired. Take your own advice and go to sleep_.

It helps, but there are still moments that feel like they’re slipping sideways the next day- Thrymm and Isedd both comment that she seems taller, they pass Rani running through the market in search of another hobbit, an elf and a Dunlending woman Cyneberg seems to recognize arrive with yet another cluster of refugees from Byre Tor. Isedd nudges her as she stares into the rafters in Lornsettle and she shrugs. She doesn’t think it fools him, especially as closely as he has been watching her.

The passes will clear easily without the threat of Núrzum hanging over them. The cold is already retreating, too, weeks’ worth of drifted snow slowly shrinking as the air warms. With the recovery well underway and their own strength largely restored, Isena and Isedd agree to set out, hoping there is still some point in spreading the message from Harding.

“And no detours this time,” Isedd says. His eyes are dark and he seems not to notice Isena’s surprised glance. “Straight through.”

They are outfitted from the Reeve’s stores in thanks, and though Isena dearly wishes for her own spear, the one Cyneberg selects for her is plenty suitable. They make their farewells and ride out, heading south and east towards Eaworth and the Entwash, Matwyn soaring above them in clear skies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> end of wildermore :D part 2 in theory takes them through to the black gate, but yknow. plans subject to change and all. should feature: their family (once i name them...), riders four, more run-ins with est and co, and more
> 
> who knows when i'll get to it. too many simultaneous projects


End file.
